The safe way to heaven with a flight ticket: reactions to ban on flights during prayer times
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A new directive that prohibits planes from taking off during prayer times has prompted ridicule throughout social networks. Ali Taheri, spokesman for the Majles Culture Committee, announced last week that, in accordance with the committee’s decision, flights will not be allowed to take off during the prayer call. It comes as no surprise that the report on the take-off ban at prayer time has drawn ridicule from Iranian social network users and bloggers affiliated with regime opponents. They have taken issue with the timing of the new directive, just when the Iranian aviation industry is gripped by a severe crisis, and made satirical posts in response to the new restrictions. |
A new directive that prohibits planes from taking off during prayer times has prompted ridicule throughout social networks. Ali Taheri, spokesman for the Majles Culture Committee, announced last week that, in accordance with the committee’s decision, flights will not be allowed to take off during the Azan call to prayer, particularly during the call to morning prayers. Flights will be authorized to take off at least half an hour after the prayer call. He noted that the directive was forwarded to the Iran Civil Aviation Organization. Taheri reported that the committee also decided to step up the enforcement of the Islamic dress code on planes and in airports (Mehr, December 26).
It comes as no surprise that the report on the take-off ban at prayer time has drawn ridicule from Iranian social network users and bloggers affiliated with regime opponents. One such blogger discussed the question of how it will be possible to implement the new directive in case the flight is forced to land after the prayer time due to a take-off delay or weather conditions. He listed four possibilities:
1) The pilot will stop the aircraft in the middle of the flight to let the passengers pray while the plane is suspended in mid-air. He will resume the flight once the prayer has ended.
2) The pilot will return to the point of departure since flying during prayer time is illegal.
3) The pilot will proceed with the flight as usual. In this case, however, he may encounter opposition from the passengers or the flight crew, who will wonder why he has chosen to continue flying instead of stopping the plane during the prayer time, as the prayer is obviously more important than the flight.
4) The pilot will leave the cockpit and join his passengers in prayer. The plane will consequently crash and all the praying passengers will die and go sraight to heaven with their flight tickets (http://zareh-bin.blogspot.ca, December 26).
In another post, the same blogger wrote that, while developed countries in the world focus on improving flight quality and safety, the authorities of Iran work on banning flights during prayer times. This, according to the blogger, is a reflection of Iran’s decline under the current regime. If Iran was once much more advanced than its neighbors—the Arab Persian Gulf states—in the field of aviation and had the airline with the most advanced planes in the world, it has now fallen behind other countries in this field while the Persian Gulf states have made impressive progress (http://zareh-bin.blogspot.ca, December 26).
Another blogger took issue with the fact that the authorities of Iran have prohibited planes from flying during prayer times just when the Iranian aviation industry is gripped by a severe economic crisis due to the effect of the sanctions. If Iran’s national airline was one of the world’s leading airlines three decades ago, it is now on the brink of bankruptcy. In a country where no new planes are purchased and the ones that there are date back to the time of the Shah, the authorities impose restrictions on flights during prayer times. Every hour of flight means money, the blogger said, and this is doubly true in a country plagued by aircraft shortage (http://gomnamian.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post_26.html).
Yet another blogger posted a satirical weblog entry with a so-called report saying that top conservative cleric Ayatollah Nouri Hamadani has found a creative solution to the problem of flights during prayer times. According to the “report”, the top cleric thanked the Majles members for the directive they issued, but argued that their plan is detrimental to the economy and is a waste of passengers’ time. He said that the pilots need to be told that, when the time comes to pray, they should park the plane in the appropriate spot in the sky—that is, where the clouds are relatively firm—and then call the passengers to prayer. The top cleric said that the plan was developed with input from top clerics in the religious centers in Qom and Najaf, and that there will soon be a prayer leader assigned to each flight so that this important divine commandment can be fulfilled whatever the conditions. This will make it possible to avoid waste of time and money, allowing flights to reach their destinations on time (http://halabekhand.wordpress.com, December 26).
This is not the first time that the Iranian authorities have brought up the need to adapt flight schedules to prayer times. In November 2008 Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stressed the importance of the obligation of prayer in Islam and expressed his discontent with the lack of mosques and prayer chambers in Iran. Among other things, he said that flight schedules need to be adapted to prayer times so that passengers can pray before they board their flight. Khamenei stressed that, on flights whose schedule cannot be adapted to prayer times, some space inside the planes themselves must be allocated to prayer.
In the wake of the Supreme Leader’s remarks, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization announced that flight schedules would be adapted to the Islamic prayer times. Hossein Khanlari, chairman of the Civil Aviation Organization, reported that, following the Supreme Leader’s decree, a directive on the issue was forwarded to all airlines in Iran, and that flight schedules would be adapted to prayer times to allow travelers to perform their prayers at the airport at the appropriate times throughout the day. The directive also stated that, on long flights, the airlines would be required to set aside a special place for prayer on the planes themselves (Farda, November 20, 2008).
