Muslims in Orbit

From JREF's Swift, because I just had to, this is so great:

Next year, we’re told, Malaysia will be sending a Muslim astronaut into space via the Russian space program. This poses several tricky problems for the Malaysian government's efforts to promote what it calls “Islam Hadhari,” or civilized Islam. This variation encourages Muslims to embrace education, science and technology. About equality for women and such other basics, we’re not told…

Consider the busy day of an astronaut, and know that a Muslim on board the space station will be confounded by the fact that he experiences more than a dozen sunrises and sunsets within each 24 hours, each event requiring that an appropriate prayer be offered. He’ll be very busy. And, since Muslims always wash before they pray, and water is a precious substance in space, attempting to wash up is also expensive and impractical, especially in weightlessness, where the water will be distributed all over the place.

Even before facing those difficulties, facing Mecca – essential for prayer – will be pretty tough in zero-gravity, and may lead to catastrophic spinning of the devotee as he tries to keep pointing toward a rapidly-moving target below.

As reader Andrew Williams comments, “It appears that Muslims might have to evolve in their views regarding life in space. Unfortunately, evolution runs against the grain in most religions.”

Progress has its penalties…

I'm not entirely sure Mohammed would approve, although I have a bit of an idea what he might look like...