I just read an article on NewScientist about how 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.
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.
There’s also a problem when it comes to ablutions, a sort of cleansing ritual, before prayer. But water is used sparingly in space and does not flow downward in microgravity.
Personally, I think these problems are superficial because Islam is an easy religion, and through its verses and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad PBUH, we know that what really counts is the will to do a certain thing such as worship, and that there are ways around to make things more practical and easier for the unable.
So, regarding the times of prayer, just like for Muslims who live close to Earth’s polar regions or at high altitudes; They should simply pick various times that would roughly correspond to their morning, noon, afternoon, sunset and night prayers.
As for praying towards the location of Mecca, if it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact location, it’s not really necessary, an estimation will do. After all, it’s the will that counts.
And when it comes to ablutions, let’s not forget that Islam started out in the Arab peninsula, so mostly desert, and they didn’t always have access to water, and so there is a process called Tayammum which is a dry form of ablution.
mais o
WAW !!! this is very interesting.!!!
Thank you for posting it 🙂
Hey MMM, I thought that during periods of travel these sort of things were regarded as optional — it’d be good to do them but you are not obligated. I can’t imagine circling the earth not being seen as “travelling”. So if these guys are supposed to be excused from prayer and so forth why would Malaysia been spending so much time and effort figuring out a way to make it happen?
That’s exactly what i was going to say… I TOTALLY agree with Jeff!!!
Man, you are making people laughing at us by talking about such details!! Islam ease things and you are just making them more difficult for yourself! 😐
Gattuso, I just read it and thought it was complicating things too much.
Gaijin, you’re welcome 🙂
Jeff, well even though I’m not that much of an expert on the matter, I do think that during travel, a person can postpone his worships until he gets to his destination, so this shouldn’t even be an issue, but well it seems our fellow Malaysians want to go the hard way.
Waleg, I agree with Jeff too, and I said in my post that these problems they were coming up with were superficial. I also did say that Islam is an easy religion that provides its followers with a number of options to make their worship easier.
I don’t know what your problem is when you say that I’m making people laugh at us and that I’m making this harder for myself. First of all, I don’t see anyone laughing, and secondly I’m not one of the Malaysian astronauts who are choosing to complicate things for themselves.
I just read an article and commented on it, in a way trying to say that: well if you really feel you have to worship while in orbit, then here are the obvious solutions to your problems.
Wow, I guess this is what is preventing moslems from conquering space.
Welcome to the 21st century.
islam is here all the time, just oppen your eyes ears and hearts ;;