Saturday, October 08, 2005
Muslim phone calls faithful to prayer
Dutch Muslims are the first in Europe to benefit from a mobile phone which offers five daily prayer-time reminders, points the faithful in the direction of Mecca and has a copy of the Koran in both English and Arabic.
The Ilkone (universe) is already on sale in Asia and the Middle East, and will shortly hit the prayer mats of France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Bosnia.
It sounds useful, but as one Dutch Muslim, 15-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri, explained to AP: "I wouldn't buy one. It might be useful for someone at home or traveling, but not at the mosque. Everyone here already knows what time prayers are."
Bootnote
Thanks very much to reader Nasser Ahmed who wrote to note that UK Muslims can get prayer times SMSed to them from www.MyAdhan.com - described as "Your intelligent call to Islam" - without having to shell out for a new handset. There are more specific details here.
