Kamangir (Archer)

Scenes from Friday Prayers

Kamangir | June 30, 2006 | Category Iran

A prayer has taken out his hand because he can really do the practice with one hand. Once I read in a book that in a war enemies more tend to add to the opponents number of injured people, than those who are killed in action. These people are a serious problem for the administration; morally and politically the administration needs to have their approval. Knowing that the suburbs and small town where good sources for soldiers sent to the front, the Iranian society is facing a large group of mostly conservative men and women whom understandably demand their ambitions to be respected and carried out in the country. Something the rest of the society may not like very much. Who should be blamed? I think those ones who continued the war and made it a religious event.

A boy is playing with his dad’s religious instruments. Mohr (Persian: مهر) (see) is a piece of dried clay made from soil gathered from a holy shrine and is used as a sign of humility in front of Allah. Muslim Shias are supposed to put their forehead on Mohr, also called Turbah, when they bow down. Sunnis see this as another sign of Shia idolatry. Tasbih (Persian: تسبیح) (see) is a string of pieces mostly made of plastic but sometimes made of clay, like Mohr. Muslims mostly use Tasbih as a counter to keep track of prayers which should be repeated for a known number of times. The boy is wearing black suite because it is a mourning period, for prophet’s daughter’s death. For a boy sitting in the prayer site, whom probably has no interest in the speakers words, Mohr and Tasbih are the best available toys.The man sitting in front seems to have liked to have more than one Mohr.People have bowed down. Basically, in a group prayer, like the Friday one, people do everything synchronized. The sitting man can not bow down, probably because he is injured in the war, and so he has brought Mohr up to mimic the practice.

He seems to either have begun sooner than the others or not have finished on time.