What am I doing here, travelogue, day 31: time for reflection and learning in the Great Mosque

A visit to get closer to spirituality before the game between Argentina and Croatia.

All this happened hours before the semifinal between Argentina and Croatia. With nervousness and logical fatigue after a month with almost no time to reflect, working in a hurry and without pause, we considered that it was the right moment to connect a little with spirituality. That is why we made the decision to go visit one of the many mosques that are around here. we choose to know the Grand Mosque of the State of Qatar.

We had already talked in this travel diary about the five daily prayers, which are one of the five pillars of Islam and whose calls are heard through loudspeakers throughout the city.

I am not going to delve into this ancient religion because it would be disrespectful. But, as everyone knows or should know, Allah is God and he has no intermediaries on earth. And Muhammad is considered his last prophet after Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus. Muhammad was the one who received the revelations that later became the writings of the Koran, the holy book that governs the lives of those who choose this religion.



The imposing prayer room of the mosque. Photo: Fernando de la Orden / Special Envoy –

The Great Mosque, which was inaugurated in 2011 by the father of the current emir, also bears the name of the iman Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab. Who was? A 17th-century Saudi Arabian preacher who is regarded as the founder of Wahhabism, a branch that espouses a more purist interpretation of Islam.

But the idea is not that I tell you what you can find in the libraries, much better explained, obviously, but that I try to tell you what it feels like to visit this imposing temple that It has place to house more than 30 thousand faithful. Yes, he read that right: 30 thousand.

We arrived around noon, just at the time of the Dhur prayer. The prayer room is moving. To enter you have to take off your shoes, slippers, sandals or whatever you have on your feet. It is that when one enters, one finds an imposing red carpet that is separated in rows by a white guard, where gigantic boxes of disposable tissues wait, alternated and in rows. That is where, one next to the other, the faithful pray, always looking towards Mecca.

One of the corridors that surround the patio where the faithful also pray.  Photo: Fernando de la Orden / Special Envoy


One of the corridors that surround the patio where the faithful also pray. Photo: Fernando de la Orden / Special Envoy

There are no images of any of the prophets. You can only see some electronic clocks with a black background and red numbers that mark the current time and announce the times of the next prayers. It is that, as I told you the other time, the prayer time is conditioned by the movement of the sun.

That is where a religious guide invited us to sit on the carpet, super soft, like walking, I imagine, on a cloud, so that we could ask him any questions we wanted about Islam, its uses and customs.

It was an enriching talk. Above all to combat our supine Western ignorance. Some of the visitors wear abayas, which are the long, generally white shirts worn by men and the long, generally black dresses worn by women, who must also cover their heads. They provided them in a basement. We, as usual, entered the wrong place.

The mosque, from inside.  Photo: Fernando de la Orden / Special Envoy -


The mosque, from inside. Photo: Fernando de la Orden / Special Envoy –

There we learned why we said yes to polygamy -men can be married to up to four women-, although only 5 percent of the faithful practice it and the obligation for men to respond to each of the calls to pray throughout the day. For this reason, there are about 2,200 mosques spread throughout this small country. And if there is not a mosque nearby, for that there are the prayer rooms that are observed in all public buildings.

It is also to admire the construction of this temple. The mosque has 93 domes. There are 65 that appear on the edges of the building and another 28 that are on the prayer rooms -because there is also one that is exclusively for women-. Many of the latter are found on the Mihrab, which is on the wall that is in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, where you have to pray, regardless of where you are on the planet.

Salam Aleikum.

Doha, Qatar. Special delivery.

What am I doing here, travelogue, day 31: time for reflection and learning in the Great Mosque