The muezzin's chant

 

It’s six o’ clock in the evening; the sun begins to set in Kuwait. Suddenly, a sound through a megaphone breaks the usual silent in my neighborhood in Al-Fintas district. It is the chant of the muezzin, the person who calls the believers from the mosque to come for praying. This is called adhan in Arabic and it takes place five times a day, between the sunrise and the night. This moment is part of some features related to the Islam and they already start to determine part of my daily life in this country.

 

 

In Kuwait, despite being considered as one of the most tolerant and liberal countries of the Islamic World, there are certain limitations and restrictions based in the Sharia, Muslim code of conduct and moral, affecting to anyone living here. As I already knew before my departure, the consumption and sell of alcoholic beverages or pork products are penalized. Pornography and whatever other material which can be considered obscene are also forbidden. Then, there are other curious laws I am discovering day by day. For example, few days ago I found out that it is illegal that two persons from the opposite sex live together if they are not married. Concerning this topic, last week I also discovered that there are separate cinema rooms for couples and families, and for single men.

 

Non alcoholic wines, for those miss a toast

 

Actually all these prohibitions are not traumatic at all for me and they don’t stop me to have a normal life, more or less similar to the one I always had. Let’s say that they are circumstances which may be stressful for those persons who can’t live without drinking a cocktail or having a ham sandwich. For me, what really changes my rhythm of life is the fact that the weekly holiday here is on Friday. I guess that it is a matter of getting used to it, but right now working on Sunday is a bit strange for me. But anyway, facing Thursday knowing that is the last working day of the week is quite pleasant.

 

One of the questions that some persons who know me worried before I left Spain was how people in Kuwait would treat me once they know I am not Muslim. There is nothing to worry about here; I didn’t feel any kind of rejection, pressure or bad manner towards me yet. On the contrary, everybody is being very nice with me so far, I feel very safe when I go for a walk and I don’t see hostility anywhere. If I would be Christian I also would have the chance to go to Church here.

 

I hope that my personal testimony on this and future posts can help a bit to eradicate some prejudices and fears related to these places. This is not, of course, a country where I could stay all my entire life, but things are not so bad here. If you live or have lived in a Muslim country, I hope I can read your comments about it, how did you feel?