What am I doing here, travelogue, day 31: time for reflection and learning in the Grand Mosque

All of this happened hours before the semi-final between Argentina and Croatia. Nervous and logically tired after a month with almost no time to reflect, working fast and without breaks, we felt it was the right time to connect a bit with spirituality. This is why we decided to go and visit one of the many mosques that exist in these parts. we choose to know the Grand Mosque of the State of Qatar.

We had already talked in this travelogue about the five daily prayers, which are one of the five pillars of Islam and whose cries can be heard through loudspeakers throughout the city.

I will not delve into this ancient religion as it would be disrespectful. But, as everyone knows or should know, Allah is God and he has no intermediaries on earth. And Mohammed is considered its last prophet after Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus. Mohammed was the one who received the revelations that later became the writings of the Koran, the sacred book that regulates the life of those who choose this religion.

The Great Mosque, inaugurated in 2011 by the father of the current emir, also bears the name of the ithe man Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab. Who was? A 17th-century Saudi preacher who is considered the founder of Wahhabism, a branch that espouses a more purist interpretation of Islam.

But the idea is not that I tell you what you can find in libraries, explained much better of course, but that I try to tell you how it feels to visit this impressive temple that It has space to accommodate more than 30,000 faithful. Yes, you read that right: 30,000.

We arrived around noon, just at the time of the Dhur prayer. The prayer hall is moving. To enter you must take off your shoes, slippers, sandals or whatever you have on your feet. It is that when you enter, you find an imposing red carpet which is separated into rows by a white guard, where gigantic boxes of disposable handkerchiefs await, alternating and in rows. It is there that, side by side, the faithful pray, always looking towards Mecca.

There are no images of any of the prophets. You only see electronic clocks with a black background and red numbers that mark the current time and announce the times of upcoming prayers. It is that, as I told you last time, the time for prayer is conditioned by the movement of the sun.

It is there that a religious guide invited us to sit on the carpet, very soft, like walking, I imagine, on a cloud, so that we could ask him all the questions we wanted about Islam, its customs and traditions.

It was an enriching speech. Especially to fight our supine western ignorance. Some of the visitors wear abayas, which are the long, usually white shirts worn by men, and the long, usually black, dresses worn by women, which must also cover their heads. They supplied them in a basement. As usual, we entered the wrong place.

There we learned why we said yes to polygamy – men can be married to up to four women – even though only 5 percent of the faithful practice it and the obligation for men to respond to each of the calls to pray during the day. This is why there are about 2,200 mosques scattered throughout this small country. And if there is no mosque nearby, then there are prayer rooms for this, which are observed in all public buildings.

The construction of this temple is also to be admired. The mosque has 93 domes. There are 65 that appear on the edges of the building and another 28 that are found in the prayer rooms -because there is also one exclusively for women-. Many of the latter are found on the Mihrab, which is on the wall that is in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, where you must pray, regardless of where you are on the planet.

Salam Aleikum.

Doha, Qatar. Special delivery.