Mussaffah’s faithful urge building of mosques to escape heat
Thousands are forced to pray on the streets ... and summer is coming
“Too much heat, too much sunshine,” Mohammed Imran said, tapping his fingers on a counter.
Mr Imran, 30, is one of hundreds who spends Fridays praying on the streets of Mussaffah, the industrial district on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.
In the cool winter months, the effect is negligible. But in the summer, the pavements get so hot in air temperatures close to 50°C that he moves his feet back and forth like a skittish cat. Worse still, he said, is when he kneels and puts his forehead to the ground in supplication.
“First the feet burn, then the head,” Mr Imran said.
“So much burns. The ground is too hot. It gets so you cannot stand on the ground to pray.”
As Mussaffah grows and its makeshift caravan-mosques disappear, workers are forced to pray on the streets.
Many of the faithful said the situation had not improved since The National visited in June 2015, when it reported on thousands praying outside the Industrial City Abu Dhabi (Icad) labour accommodations.
The Icad complex is home to 26,000 workers and has one of the few mosques in the area, attracting not only its residents but men such as Mr Imran who work in the area.
He said the situation had not improved since he arrived five years ago to work at the nearby Qamar Punjab Restaurant.
But the problem is not just at Icad. A five-minute drive away, the Abdullah bin Shaiban #269 mosque regularly overflows. It can hold 1,200 worshippers but its imam said an additional 2,000 attend Friday prayers.
In wealthier neighbourhoods, families donate to local mosque building, but Mussaffah is home to low-income workers who earn hundreds of dirhams a month, not thousands.
“People are poor and they’re not able to pay here – the people with money are in other areas,” said its imam of 29 years, Moluana Fairouz Ahmed.
“This is a working area for the poor.”
Imam Ahmed keeps sermons short in summer to accommodate workers.
“There are not many places to pray,” he said. “The whole area is full on Friday. Mussaffah was small and now it’s become big, as big as Abu Dhabi, mashallah. We need more mosques.”
For years, the solution was the humble porta-mosque, caravans and temporary concrete structures colourfully decorated with posters of Makkah and crescents cut from plywood. These simple structures were once plentiful in Mussaffah.
But in 2008, the construction permits director at Abu Dhabi Municipality, Khalfan Al Nuaimi, declared that mosques should be “nice buildings” and said “the idea of the temporary mosque is finished”.
A few months later, the Mosque Development Committee was established under Falah Al Ahbabi, general manager of the Urban Planning Council, to set guidelines for the development and management of all mosques in compliance with Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.
Mr Al Ahbabi said guidelines to be issued in 2010 would “define the urban character of the city” and “preserve Abu Dhabi’s Emirati, Arab and Islamic identity”.
At the same time as the temporarary mosques disappeared, Mussaffah’s population has quickly grown, representing a fifth of Abu Dhabi’s commercial licences.
Traditionally an area for labourers, it is growing popular with middle-class employees.
Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council and the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments did not respond when approached for comment about plans to build more mosques in the area.
But under the Future Vision of Mussaffah plan, approved by Abu Dhabi Executive Council in 2016, government will invest in its roads and a 7.5-kilometre waterfront development.
“In Mussaffah, this is the main thing. There are not many mosques,” said Sabir Zaman, 24, a taxi driver who regularly worships at Abdullah bin Shaiban #269 mosque.
Driving around, he points to empty spaces and the absence of minarets. “Look, here is not a mosque. No mosque here. You look in all areas, you look – no mosque.”
Mr Zaman struggles to pray in his room, which he shares with 16 others. Praying in the space between triple bunks can be tricky but it is easier than standing on the road in summer when temperatures routinely exceed 40°C. But the taxi driver has little choice during Ramadan, when the mosques are so busy that there is no space in the mosque or anywhere around it.
“In Ramadan, especially, I pray in my room. The mosque is far. We are forced. Praying is a necessity.”
Mr Zaman’s suggestion is a simple one.
“Make more mosques. This is very necessary.”
So much burns. The ground is too hot. It gets so you can not stand to pray MOHAMMED IMRAN Mussaffah resident