Twenty four hour shopping and a sea of behinds

When I was a child, the world was unblemished by twenty four hour supermarkets. My mother procured our material needs at the small parade of establishments near our house. Every Sunday and on Public Holidays, shops were firmly shut. If we ran out of bread or eggs, begging from neighbours was our only option.  The reason for all this inconvenience? To give everyone time to go to church (we were told). Our local newsagent was allowed special dispensation on Sunday mornings as purveyor of essential reading matter*. Times have changed! Should we choose to do so, these days we can feed our consumer habit morning, noon and night, unfettered by religion. 

The five daily prayers

 

On arrival in the Middle East, I wondered how shop opening times would be impacted by the demands of Islamic observance. After all, one of the five big rules for Muslims is to pray five times every day.

I was reassured by my bank manager (the first Middle Eastern person I met) that in the UAE, shops stayed open late every day, even on a Friday. Uninitiated at that point, I responded ‘Great, we can all worship the god of commerce whenever we want.’ The bank manager shot me a withering glance and uttered a cutting, ‘That’s not what I mean’. Only later did I realise that rule number one of the five big rules is ‘There is only one God’. My careless reference to the possibility of multiple deities had been a faux pas of the highest order!

When I traversed from the UAE to work in Saudi Arabia, it was a different story. Time stood still for every one of the five prayers. In shopping malls, banks and restaurants, metal shutters descended, incarcerating incumbents for up to forty five minutes at a time. Shop assistants and waiters dashed (ostensibly) to the exclusively male prayer rooms and (interestingly) the smoking areas were full to overflowing.

 

The Islamic stance for prayer

Jolly Rubenesque indeed!

I never could fathom whether segregation of the sexes during prayer was to avoid distraction by the Rubenesque form or to save my blushes as gentlemen assumed a prayerful stance; nose and forehead touching the floor (and behind inevitably raised to compensate).  If it was the latter, they need not have worried. Within my first week in Saudi Arabia, I became immune to the sea of behinds as I endeavoured to creep, respectfully silent and without tripping, between the piles of carelessly discarded shoes strewn across the landing of the office during prayertime.

https://www.facebook.com/clara.challoner.walker

* Other more dubious reasons for his dispensation emerged in later years but that’s another story!