JEDDAH, 8 July 2007 — Don’t you just hate it when you’re quietly supplicating in your neighborhood mosque when suddenly a Haifa Wehbe MP3 ring tone starts blaring out of your mobile phone? Yes, the dirty looks and even the possible admonishment from the imam may follow. You slink out of the mosque, embarrassed. You make a mental note to ensure that next time you will remember to set the mobile to “silent” and hope that you will actually remember to do so. Recently in a Jeddah a mosque a Saudi man disrupted Asr prayer when he accidentally pressed the “answer” button on his phone instead of “ignore” when it began to ring. To make matters worse, the phone was set on speaker and suddenly fellow mosque-goers were treated to the sound of a Saudi housewife bickering at her spouse and calling him a fool. The man left the mosque a little earlier than others, clearly a little embarrassed by his mobile faux pas.
