Prayers – Part II

So, as mentioned in a previous post there are five prayers or “salat” per day. Four of them fall during waking hours. By waking hours we mean business hours. So what happens when you are at the yogurt shelf at Carrefour wondering if the flavor of the day is strawberry or pineapple and prayer time starts? Well, most shops close and kick you out. Some big ones, like Carrefour and Ikea, let you stay inside and keep shopping, but the cashiers close. So, you can do your shopping during prayer time but you can’t pay for your yogurt or bookshelves because the cashiers are closed.

Each salat lasts about 25 minutes so it’s not the end of the world if you have to wait. I’ve (K) not hit any prayer times while shopping so far. Our strategy has been to move from one shop to another during salat. So, for example, you do your groceries and pay 5 min before salat starts. You hop in the car and drive to the next shop during the salat, and then you are conveniently at the door of the next shop you intended to visit when the salat ends and they are just opening up again.

Now, some of you might remember from the previous post that prayer times are not carved in stone but keep changing. Ha! So what you need to do is download an iPhone app called iPray and it will conveniently tell you when the next prayer starts. If you want, you can even get the app to start singing “Allah akhbar” when it’s prayer time. I’ve turned that functionality off in my phone. For some reason it just didn’t feel right. One of these days though, I’m going to turn it on for the 4AM salat and leave the phone on T’s nightstand.