Like a Prayer

        I remember being woken up really early my first night in Jakarta;  in fact the clock had hit 4.48 a.m. and chanting prayers of the Fajr were coming out from the Mosque down the street...  


The Fajr (Arabic: فجر‎) prayer is the first of the five daily prayers recited by practising Muslims. (Fajr means dawn in theArabic language.) 

         Indonesia is the largest muslim country in the world, with 202.9 million practicing muslims. Whether your are a local or an expat the 5 formal prayers are part of your daily life. These are: near dawn, just after the sun's noon, in the afternoon, just after sunset and around nightfall. Aside from hearing the chanting and callings of the Mosque, I have only rarely (passively) experienced the Salah. I find Indonesians to be very discreet... somehow almost delicate. 

Ṣalāh or Ṣalāt (Arabic: صلاة‎; pl. ṣalawāt) is the practice of formal prayer in Islam.Salah is a ritual prayer, having prescribed conditions, a prescribed procedure, and prescribed times.

         Last night as I was walking back to the women's locker room at Celebrity Fitness, I almost ran into a woman all covered up in her shiny blue burqa contemplating what would have been the  Asr (afternoon prayer). 


The lady had laid out her prayer rug according to formal rules and was performing movements very similar to the Sun Salutations I teach my students in yoga class. A few minutes later the lady took her gown off and was suddenly back in her personal trainer clothes... pretty comparable actually to Superman turning into Clark Kent. 

Love, C-