During work hours I usually pray in a mosque resembling a portacabin, in fact it is a portacabin! A customized portacabin embellished with the same overzealous enthusiasm a reformed glue sniffer might lavish on his chav mobile. The portacabin is fitted with a make shift minaret and other arabesque trimmings giving it that almost-authentic mosque look and feel. The concept of the mobile mosque might actually be a good business proposition in the West. If, and when the shadow of public outrage falls upon “the Muslims” the faithful can just load up the mosque, hitch it to the back of a transit van and head to the hills for a few weeks, or at least until there is something good on telly to distract the masses. Anyway our local workplace porta-mosque ™ is affectionately known as ‘the blue mosque’ despite the fact it is actually painted a supernatural shade of yellow. Our blue mosque derives its name from the battalions of laborers who regularly attend the prayers there, all of them decked out in the blue, standard issue, all-in-one, canvas uniforms; each with his function embroidered across the back, “maintenance”, “health and safety”, “sanitation”. This sight is perversely futuristic, a kind of 21st century color coded caste system, a mass of blue underlings, a few designer non-conformists, and a ruling minority that wear white.
Outside of my futuristic work zone the Mosque-scape in the UAE is architecturally rich, but it is richness born of creative poverty. The skyline is punctuated with amazing looking mosques all thrusting javelin sharp minarets into the soft blue stomach of the cloudless sky , a mini Taj Mahal here, a larger than life Sultan Ahmed there, but no real sense of any distinctive, innovative, defining native architectural style, a little bit like the UK mosque-scape in that sense. Despite this lack of architectural inspiration several of the mosques here are still able to have a profound impact on at least two of your senses, touch and smell. Occasionally you walk into a mosque that is burning the most amazing incense, pure frankincense from Oman, top grade Oud from India, and they all invariably have the AC whacked up to temperatures that can freeze water. The impact as you walk in from a hot, humid, dusty, stinking street can be tranquilizing.
In addition to the signature smells of some mosques the cosmopolitan composition of the emirates has many mosques carving out ethnic niches, The mosque near my house, Qanat al Qasba, has been set up to cater for English speakers, the Friday sermon is in English only. You struggle to find a sermon in England in English and ironically here in the heartlands of Arabia a Brooklyn-ian accent bounces off the walls as the Friday sermon reverberates through the streets around Qanat al Qasba in evangelical American English. “You sold your Deen* for jeans brothers” the preacher screams lamenting the wonder lust for contemporary consumer culture at the expense of more spiritual and religious values. As you might expect the English sermon attracts the Brits and Yanks who attend in great numbers, and come from all over the Emirates to hear the English sermon. You can spot the Brits and Yanks by their footwear; overly complex sandals, trainers or timberland boots. Another distinguishing characteristic of the Anglo American worshipers is that each Friday without fail they will be the last to leave the mosque fore-court. They congregate in the shade of palm trees in small groups to chat and reconnect with their compatriots. “Where you from den?” – “Essex in it ?”, “Oh my cousin lives in Illford?” – “what’s his name, I might know him?” - slowly they feel each other out searching for some common ground or shared attitudes additional to their Islamic monotheism, searching for something that may give them a richer connection than the de-facto relationship of co-religionists. Most of the Brits and Yanks in attendance were the children of immigrants, and now they themselves are immigrants in a new land, 2nd generation immigrant immigrants, maybe this is why they spend longer trying to make connections, cultivating a culture, trying to put down roots. Then again maybe they just like to gab more.
*way of life
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