Mosque tour

Once a month, the Islamic Cultural Centre in Doha puts on a free mosque tour and education session, so we went yesterday. At the cultural centre, the women are put into an abaya, the traditional long black dress that Muslim women wear over their clothing. Wearing an abaya was an interesting experience, I felt as though I had to walk very slowly and plan my movements ahead of time because it's a little restrictive. One pro is that the material is very loose and flowing however, the fact that it's black means if you have to stand in the sun for a few minutes, it gets extremely hot! The headscarf, (hijab, or shayla) kept falling off and I had to keep fiddling with it and tucking it in so that it wouldn't come undone. I don't think it's something I could get used to wearing on a regular basis but I'm glad for yesterday's experience. The Arab women I've seen wearing them here will often use pins or a small hat underneath to keep it in place. The hair is usually worn in a bun high at the back of the head and this also helps keep the headscarf from sliding off.

 Diana in her abaya

 

From the cultural centre, a bus took us to Katara, an area of Doha where many arts and cultural events take place. The opera house, Doha Film Institute and several galleries are all located here, as well as what is known as the Blue Mosque. Once inside, our guide told us that each mosque is staffed by two men: one is the imam, the man in charge of leading the prayers five times a day. All imams must know the Koran by heart, all 600 pages of it and is selected based on his knowledge and experience. The other man is in charge of keeping track of the times of each prayer, which change slightly each day depending on what time the sun rises and sets. When you hear the call to prayer in a Muslim country, it indicates that those around have 20-25 minutes to get to the mosque to pray. We learned that men must go to the mosque to pray but women have the option of praying at home. Both men and women are also permitted to pray at work, if their employees provide a prayer room or an area to pray. I have yet to walk into a building here where I haven't seen his and hers prayer rooms.

The first call to prayer, at about 4 in the morning, includes something that translates to "praying is better than sleeping," just a little extra encouragement to get out of bed and pray. Hey, at 4 in the morning I can see why they decided to add that part in. Our guide also told us that only 25% of the world's muslims are Arabs so not every imam will speak Arabic.

The Blue Mosque, in Katara

One of the buildings in Katara, this may have been the Opera House?

The pigeon towers

Inside the Blue Mosque

 Ok so the photo above deserves some explanation. This is a model of an apartment and shopping complex the government is planning to build over the next few years. They say things are bigger in Texas? Things are definitely bigger in Doha! After our tour, we headed back to the cultural centre where a traditional meal was waiting for us (Aaron, these are for you, brotha!).

Chicken and lamb (left) piled high on top of saffron rice with cardamom, slivered almonds and raisins.

There was also coleslaw, humous, tabboules, yougurt, moutabal (an eggplant dip), and bread.

Probably the best mean I've eaten since I arrived here.