Jumah prayer

On Friday afternoon Jeremy and I went out for lunch.
After we'd had our food (awesome Irani/Afgani rice with meat), we went back to the office hoping to get there through the usual road that we take.

However, soon after going outside the cafe, we realized that it was Friday afternoon (1pm) which is the time for jumah prayer.

There were people everywhere on the streets which lead to masjid (mosque / praying area), including the street that we usually take. They were sitting on praying mattresses which are put on earth, close to each other due to limited space, and going up and down while praying. Imam from the mosque was reading Qaran verses, and his voice was heard in the entire Saddar area.

Islam as a religion has a strong focus on practices for the whole community. All main rituals in Islam are created in such a way that Muslims around the world are doing them at the same time of the day (which do not reflect time differences though). This is done to give a feeling of unity to community of Muslims: "while I am saying my prayer I know that all Muslims in my country and around the world are doing the same".


Surprisingly, public buses were passing by the people praying, so close to them, almost stepping on their foot!

So we had to go all the way around to make a circle and reach the office :)

Interesting experience.

This picture is from a different place (I didn't take any pictures that day as it's not really respectful to do so), I just wanted to show how community prayers look like.