Malaysia's National Space Agency is trying to determine how its astronaut candidates will practice Islam in space. Three of its four astronaut candidates are Muslim, and two will be selected for a future Russian space flight.
Once in their orbiting spacecraft, they will circle the Earth once every 90 minutes. Traditionally, Muslims pray five times per day, at times connected to the position of the Sun in the sky. This will make prayer observance a challenge if they accept a "day" as being just 90 minutes long.
A similar problem occurs for Muslims who live close to Earth's polar regions where there are long periods of daylight or darkness. Islamic legal scholars traditionally say that in such situations, a Muslim should pray as they would at a particular, relatively high latitude, even if they venture nearer the poles.
"Any legal scholar advising these astronauts would have to simply pick various times that would roughly correspond to their morning, noon, afternoon, sunset and night prayers," says Alan Godlas, a professor of religion at the University of Georgia, US.
Minor ablutions
Additionally, Muslims turn toward Mecca when they pray. Zooming around the Earth at 28,000 kilometres per hour might make pinpointing the exact location of Mecca pretty tricky. Godlas says that orienting oneself toward Earth might be good enough. "There are instances where the prophet indicated a wide swathe; kind of a general direction," Godlas says.
And Muslims have a cleansing ritual, known as ablutions, before prayer. But water is used sparingly in space. Godlas says astronauts could force water between their two hands and then moisten the body during a minor ablution.
On Earth, it is ideal to have water running along the arms from the faucet, but water does not flow downward in microgravity. Godlas says that when water is not available, scholars have determined a pure rock could be used to wipe the hands. The hands could then clean the forearms, face and feet.
Saudi Arabian astronaut Sultan Salman Al-Saud flew aboard the shuttle in 1985. He was scheduled to look out the shuttle's window to see the crescent of the new moon to mark the end of the Muslim religious holiday, Ramadan.
[Source: New Scientist SPACE]
3 comments:
remember the Quran tells us,
002.115 To Allah belong the east and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah. For Allah is all-Pervading, all-Knowing.
also in orbit i believe it will become standard to simply use the prayer times in Mecca. When colonizing Mars how the masjids will be built will also become an Issue.
Salam
Salams
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This reminds me of a story I heard once about a science fiction convention that was held in Israel. At one of the discussions, the question came up of when a Jewish astronaut in orbit should start to observe the Sabbath, since it's supposed to begin at sunset on the Friday. SF conventions are normally very peaceful, friendly events, and you'd think a nice little theoretical question like that would be the kind of thing you could have a friendly debate about, but unfortunately some people took it too seriously and by the end of the weekend fights were breaking out over it! It makes me glad my personal philosophy doesn't include such rules, life's complicated enough as it is ;-)
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