Has Madonna ditched Kabbalah for Islam? Singer reveals she is studying the Koran

Holy studies: Madonna in a red kabbalah bracelet, said to ward off misfortune

It is almost a quarter of a century since she first sang Like A Prayer.
But it seems the intervening years have done little to help Madonna decide exactly who she’s praying to.
For it appears the queen of re-invention may be on the verge of one of her most startling changes yet, after she revealed she was studying the Koran.
The 55-year-old was raised a Roman Catholic, but for the past 17 years she has been a devout follower of Kabbalah, a mystical offshoot of Judaism.
Now the singer, whose current partner is a Muslim, has begun investigating Islam.
She said: ‘I am building schools for girls in Islamic countries and studying the Koran.
‘I think it is important to study all the holy books.
‘As my friend Yaman always tells me, a good Muslim is a good Jew, and a good Jew is a good Christian, and so forth. I couldn’t agree more.
‘To some people this is a very daring thought.’
Madonna has followed Kabbalah since 1996. She famously  persuaded her former husband, British director Guy Ritchie, to attend Kabbalah services before they split in 2008. But she and her current partner Brahim Zaibat, 25, have reportedly argued about religion because of his Muslim faith.

Madonna is said to dilute her children’s orange juice with  specially blessed Kabbalah water, and often wears white clothes because they attract ‘positive energy’.

In the past the entertainer has been challenged by senior Jewish figures for her faith, prompting her to say her beliefs ‘would be less controversial if I joined the Nazi Party’.
In her latest interview, with Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she said it ‘made people nervous’, adding: ‘It made people mad. Was I doing something dangerous? It forced me to ask myself, is trying to have a relationship with God daring? Maybe it is.’
Madonna said she was a ‘big believer in ritualistic behaviour’ and was ‘not a big fan of rules’. She explained:  ‘Rules people follow without question.

Brought up a Catholic, Madonna is pictured wearing the Cross round her neck

‘Order is what happens when words and actions bring people together, not tear them apart. Yes, I like to provoke; it’s in my DNA. But nine times out of ten, there’s a reason for it.’ 

 
Madonna’s last attempt to build a school abroad was an embarrassing failure.
In 2008, a project to construct a girls’ school in Malawi collapsed after it was claimed £2.4million was squandered on luxuries without a single brick being laid.
The project was conceived by her charity Raising Malawi, which she created in 2006 with the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre International. She was not implicated in the financial scandal  and was not on the board of the charity when it happened.

Madonna and her son Rocco Ritchie out and about in New York at the weekend