While having an early morning breakfast at Fuddruckers yesterday, my wife asked me what the theme of this week’s column was going to be. I told her that I hadn’t started on one, and neither had I zeroed in on a topic yet. In the back of my mind I had been mulling over the outlines of a column on Mr. Bush and Iraq, and the lack of a “smoking gun”, but that needed a bit more time and research to put together. And time was something I didn’t have the luxury of. Deadlines are often a writer’s greatest dilemma.
“Why not write about the break times?” she volunteered helpfully as she often does when I present her with a blank look. “Why don’t you bring out the issue of the extraordinary number of break times business establishments here take, and the unpleasant impact it has on the consumer?”
And as I sat there across her munching away at my cheese omelet and toast, the seeds of this week’s column had begun to form. It is an issue that undeniably affects most of us here, and is disguised in the form of prayer times where shops and establishments have to allow their staff to take prayer breaks.
However, prayers do not run over five to ten minutes at the most. But a lot of places close their doors for nearly an hour. What’s worse is when one is halfway through their shopping, and are unceremoniously booted out of the store as the staff eagerly prepares to shut down.
And this great hurry does not necessarily manifest itself with heading for prayers. One just has to wander around in shopping malls during prayer breaks and notice these sales personnel having a chat or a smoke outside their closed shops while the rest are at prayers, to realize that indeed these are disguised break times at the expense of the consumer.
I have prayed at the mosques in Makkah and Madinah, and what I found extremely remarkable is that the shops bordering these two great mosques close up barely a minute before prayer times and open up a minute later. None of the languish and stretching of a 10-minute prayer break into a one-hour rest period.
And understandably, most of the suffering from such louts of loiter falls upon women. Very few establishments show any care or concern for the needs of women during prayer times. And as there are very few rest areas for them, they have to manage and perch themselves on side-railings and sidewalks and wait. It is not very pleasant, and worse so during the hot summer months.
So what should be done? To begin with, employers must limit prayer breaks to realistic and reasonable times. Forty-five minutes to an hour is just too long. Employers should note that the times for observing one’s faith are being abused by some very unfaithful employees who use these periods as long, extended siesta breaks.
And facilities should be set aside for women and children to pray or rest comfortably while the stores are shut down. It is not enough to simply boot them out of stores and onto hallways of crowded malls and sidewalks where comfortable seating is usually non-existent.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not an attack on those who close their shops to practice their faith. For each one of us should be granted those times to say our prayers.
But for those who choose instead to use these times as a long and happy break, to them I say enough is enough!
— Tariq A. Al-Maeena, [email protected]
Arab News Features 11 January 2003
