Why Turn Off the Lights?
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, close_encounters@gawab.comYou are in a department store or a restaurant, when suddenly you find yourself amidst lights being dimmed and shutters being drawn. Left to grope for an exit and safety in the near dark, you notice you are not alone. Other patrons are fumbling about toward the lit exterior, some with small children or bags of purchases.
This is a very interesting opinion piece!
In it, the writer notes how, at prayer time, businesses turn off the lights and shut the doors to patrons. Many places chase the patrons out; some simply lock them in during the prayer period.
While the article raises the issue as a matter of public safety, what it’s really doing is questioning the merits of the practice in the first place. This is an oblique attack on those who insist on a uniform interpretation of religious practice.
If you’ve never been to Saudi Arabia, I encourage you to read this article to get an idea of what it’s like, at least as far as the interruptions for prayer time go. If you have lived there, then you know. And you’ll appreciate the courage it took to write this piece.
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February:12:2005 - 00:33
Thanks for this article.
To a westerner, very funny, to a Saudi shopper, a darn nuisance and a very good reason to shop at night.
February:12:2005 - 12:03
I’d arrange to do my grocery shopping just before one of the evening prayer calls. While the store could not conduct transactions (checking you out, weighing or measuring things), you could still go along the aisles and fill your cart. Then, when the store re-opened, you headed for the cashier.
If you were in a restaurant–particularly those aimed at a foreign clientele–they’d stop serving, you wouldn’t see a waiter, but you could continue your meal in dimmed lights.
The biggest nuisance was getting to a place just as they were closing the doors for prayer. Then you had to wait.
But prayer time schedules are printed in all the papers, so you could make plans accordingly. In the major cities you could also find a handy wallet-sized card that gave approximations of prayertime throughout the year. Since prayertime is established by the circuit of the sun, it made a difference where you were in the country. While the whole country is in one time zone, sunset in the east comes almost an hour before sunset in the west. The country spans an entire zone.