Prayer requires a clean space, and the prayer hall is one big prayer space, so shoes stay at the door. The home habit follows the same instinct (and, converts report, quickly starts feeling obviously correct).

Following the Prophet's ﷺ appearance and instruction; schools differ on whether it's obligatory or recommended. A beard is worn as an act of love and identity, not a political statement, and plenty of practising Muslims are clean-shaven.

To protect the one thing Islam guards most: worship belonging to God alone. Images of revered figures historically drift into veneration, so the tradition removed the on-ramp. It's reverence by restraint, and it's also why mosques are decorated with calligraphy and geometry instead of faces.

"If God wills": commanded in the Quran (18:23-24) for any statement about tomorrow. It's epistemic humility as a verbal habit. (Yes, it sometimes doubles as a soft "probably not"; Muslims joke about this too.)

A misbaha (or tasbih): 33 or 99 beads for counting dhikr, typically SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, and Allahu Akbar 33 times each after prayer. A counting tool, like a rosary, not an amulet.

It abbreviates "peace and blessings of God be upon him", a small prayer the Quran itself invites (33:56). Saying it is an act of love performed millions of times a day.

Partly fiqh, partly culture. Dog saliva is ritually impure in most schools (requiring washing before prayer), so dogs traditionally live outside Muslim homes rather than on the furniture; but keeping working and guard dogs is permitted, cruelty to them is forbidden, and a famous hadith has a sinner forgiven entirely for watering a thirsty dog. The Maliki school barely restricts them at all.

Prophetic etiquette: the right hand for eating and greeting, the left for hygiene. A small daily mindfulness that also happens to be excellent ancient public health.

"Peace be upon you" is both greeting and small prayer, and spreading it widely is explicitly encouraged. You may answer "wa alaykum as-salam" without being Muslim; it's a wish for peace, and it's yours to return.

The fixed prayer texts stay in the revealed language, which is why a Nigerian, a Bosnian, and an Indonesian can pray in one row with no interpreter: a 1.9-billion-person shared liturgy. Personal supplication (du'a) is in whatever language your heart uses.

The difficulty is a feature: a month of scheduled self-mastery, solidarity with the hungry, and undistracted attention to God. Ask a Muslim in week two; they'll complain and glow in the same sentence. (Full explainer: the fasting guide.)

Wudu: hands, mouth, nose, face, arms, head, feet. Two minutes that work as an airlock between the day's noise and the prayer's focus. The Prophet ﷺ said sins fall away with the water.

The Quran prohibits intoxicants outright, and most Muslims genuinely don't miss it (many will still happily attend; the soft drink is doing fine). Details and party diplomacy: the halal guide.

Sujud, the prostration: the posture of total surrender, and in Islam the position where a person is closest to God. Reserving your forehead's touch of the ground for God alone is the five-times-daily physical rehearsal of the entire creed.