Repeating things 50,000 times has to rank high. It could always be worse though. It could be repeating things 100,000 times. Or 500,000 times. Or a million.
It’s a real thing in Turkey though.
A teacher in Istanbul has allegedly ordered his students to say God’s name 50,000 times and “prove it” for homework.
The teacher of a Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge class at Sancaktar Hayrettin Primary School in Istanbul’s Fatih district set fifth grade students the task of repeating “salawat,” meaning “peace be upon him” in Arabic, a phrase often used after the name of the prophet of Islam. The task was to be completed as homework during Islam’s holy week.
And “prove” it? How the hell would you do that?
Students told reporters that the most difficult part of the homework was “proving” that they had completed it. Some parents bought “a salawat-counting machine” called Zikirmatik, which is sold for 2 Turkish Liras (around 1 euro). Zikirmatik is a counter for people who have difficulties counting beads.
One parent said he had gathered his whole family and tried to reach the 50,000 prayers. “I calculated that every salawat lasted three seconds. This means is would take around 40 hours to reach the limit,” he said.
Some students found another solution by marking their notebooks once for each salawat.
Hello? That doesn’t “prove” anything except that you hit click 50 thousand times or that you made a mark 50 thousand times (which would be bad and stupid and tedious enough).
We know what the idea is though. Drill. Self-hypnosis. Self-conditioning. Believers use prettier language for it, naturally, but that’s what it is.