Women's section of a mosque

Ever since I had been ordered to wear a neon pink sweat vest pulled over my head in Cairo's Al Azhar for the sake of being pious, I had had a really hard time taking mosques seriously. But for some reason, the Ulu Mosque of Bursa just felt different. For one, the marble ablution fountains just outside the entrance, busy with dozens of worshippers washing their hands and feet before their midday prayer, were something I had never seen. Even Bursa itself felt like a very pious city where veiled women abound and tourists are next to non-existent. The whole atmosphere was right for this to be a great Mosque.

The atmosphere was so pious indeed that I stood outside the main entrance door by the ablution fountain for about twenty minutes trying to figure out whether this mosque was open to visitors or not and wishing I carried a headscarf. At last, a lone tourist among hundreds of local worshippers, I shyly walked up the marble stairs and peaked inside.

To my surprise, the first thing I saw was a large white board listing visitors' guidelines in various languages. Some of these were: "Do not visit during prayer time (when people are kneeling and bowing), it will only last about 20 minutes. Do not walk in front of people who are praying. Women visitors are asked to cover their heads and shoulders with shawls provided by the management."

Leopard-skin headscarves

Shawls! I turned to the young crippled boy sitting by the entrance and pulled an imaginary scarf over my head, raising my eyebrows in interrogation. He simply nodded, went into the mosque and came back with a leopard skin motif headscarf. I grinned in half-hearted gratitude and reached over to take the scarf out of his crippled hands which were like little buds growing directly out of his shoulders. He returned my smile and sat back down on his favoured step.

As I wrapped my blonde head, I was kindly reminded to take my shoes off and forcefully directed towards the shoe check booth. But it so happened that I was very intent on carrying my own shoes to avoid the annoying and unjustified check fee. However the shoekeeper, a little old man who meant business, forbade me from going any further unless I left my black sneakers with him.

Reluctantly, I handed over my filthy footwear to the little man who carefully stored it behind him in a small wooden locker. This man obviously had no patience for tourists and their language and irrational preoccupations. So I decided not to bother him with my financial worries related to his "services".

Now as shoeless as the rest of the stinky-footed crowd, I proceeded to the women's side of the Mosque, marvelling at this Muslim architectural feat. The magnificent Ulu Mosque, covered by 20 domes and adorned by a 16-cornered marble ablution fountain and pool, is Bursa's grandest and dates back to 1398.

I hadn't been inside five minutes that the call for prayer began. This meant - as I very well knew - that I had to leave like all other "non-believers". Being as genial as ever, I figured that if I sat quietly in a dark corner maybe I could wait the twenty minutes out unnoticed... and avoid having to pay that fricking shoe check twice!

With the inflow of worshippers steadily increasing, I desperately looked for the best "discreet" spot available. The women's fenced off section looked too crammed for me so I finally opted to sit just outside the partition, behind a huge carpet cleaning machine. Who but a tourist would want to sit there?

I kneeled down, sitting on my heels, pulling on my head scarf to hide that pale foreign face as much as I could. In total awe, I watched the worshippers pour in and diligently take position on the colourful carpet, like soldiers of a well trained army.

After a few minutes the prayer started. Out of loudspeakers came a grave prayer and at the first pause, there was a deafening thump: the several hundred strong congregation had just dropped to its knees on the Mosque's carpeted floor.

I soon realised how out of place I really was and decided it might be better to head back out. I looked over my shoulder to find the little shoekeeper, but he had disappeared under his booth's counter already busy with his midday prayer.

This meant I would now have to stand by the entrance like a moron for twenty minutes waiting for my shoes until he was done. Or I could stay where I was.

While I was debating whether I should stay or leave, three women kneeled down in front of me to pray. One turned around and invited me to move up to join them and not stay behind by myself.

I was totally taken aback. Apparently my blue plaid short sleeve shirt, khaki quick dry pants and leopard skin headscarf weren't enough to convince her I was a tourist. But then again, with the rising popularity of Islam in the West, I suppose I could also very well have been some kind of new convert.

I nervously shook my head and waved my hand attempting a polite refusal. Now more ill at ease than ever, I looked back again to see if the shoekeeper had reappeared, but there was still no sign of him.

As if to put an end to my dilemma, a dozen female latecomers showed up and kneeled down all around me to pray. (Obviously the carpet cleaning machine didn't bother them so much.) I was surrounded! "Don't walk in front of people who are praying", the rules said. This meant that, locked in as I was, all I could do now was sit on my heels and wait.

This might have worked out rather well if it hadn't been for both my legs painfully cramping up and threatening to go completely numb. If that happened, the only way I could walk out of here would be to vigorously slap my thighs around to stimulate blood flow. I figured that THAT, if nothing else, would definitely blow my cover.

I first tried only getting up on my knees, but this didn't do much beside making me look like a groundhog peaking out of its burrow on a sunny spring day.

That tingling, army-of-ants-walking-up-your-trousers feeling finally got me and I knew I needed to unfold those big long legs of mine, fast. Even if that meant... getting up and praying to Allah!

I had seen this Muslim prayer ritual before, being vaguely familiar with the standing, bowing, kneeling and forehead banging the ground thing. However, I had no clue in what order these needed to be done, at what pace or how many times.

This left me having to spy on my neighbours. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly well-surrounded as far as role models went. One was crippled and couldn't do the standing up part. Another was disturbingly overweight and in a rather bad shape too so that she could barely bend over and only managed to lower her forehead to the floor in an odd sideway fashion.

But finally, the elderly lady next to me, dressed in a beautiful golden embroidered black silk garb, seemed to be doing it right. I pretended to be lost in my prayers whiled I focused on memorising her every move.

To my relief, Muslim prayer was simpler than I had expected. All one has to do is begin in a standing position, bow (something like Japanese do when they meet, but pausing a few seconds before getting back up) then get down on your knees and bow all the way down to the floor twice, bum up, face down in the carpet, and start over... until it is safe to resume normal tourist behaviour.

So I got up and bowed and kneeled and prayed with Bursa's Muslims that day. While my conscience was totally killing me, my legs felt a hell of a lot better.

Something I couldn't help notice was how close Muslims can stand to be to one another when they pray. There just seems to be no such thing as personal space. Really, I had to literally brush my head in my front neighbour's generous behind every time I bowed, while my back neighbour didn't seem to mind having to do the same to me.

Needless to say, this had me quickly revise my lifelong prejudices against segregation of sexes in Mosques. For one, it now made perfect sense to me that it be forbidden for a man to pray behind a woman. I mean, I have to agree: God's the last thing I'd be thinking about if I had some unknown guy brushing his face up and down my behind for twenty minutes five times a day. Really.

However for now I only needed to worry about the newly found fact that there is more to Muslim prayer than head banging and butt brushing. There is also some Koran verse reciting involved. Yet as much as I was intent on going relatively unnoticed, that's where I had to draw the line, that fine line between consideration and blaspheme. But prayers are what give rhythm to the bowing. So because I could not honour Prophet Mohammed's divinely inspired prose, I continued my bowings, Allah have mercy, mumbling French Catholic prayers.

And on it went until the women around me stopped bowing, picked up their prayer beads and remained kneeling and whispering prayers. I had to sit still a few more minutes, waiting cluelessly for something to happen or someone to move.

Finally, men started to walk out and, just as I thought I'd paralyze, a couple of women in front of me got up and I could make my way out of the praying crowd.

I walked over to the shoe booth where the little old man stood before shelves full of smelly footwear. He looked at me, with the grand air of someone guarding a King's treasure, and without the need for any numbered tags, fished my shoes out of the pile and handed them over to me. I was afraid he'd give me a scolding for not having left during prayer time, but no. He too seemed to believe I was some sort of funky new foreign convert.

I put my shoes back on and, taking a deep breath, asked the little shoekeeper how much I owed. As a most unexpected answer, he put his right hand over his heart and shook his head, waving me out.

Nothing. Shame on me, for I really had no reason to stay in that Mosque. But then again, I've been little short of a walking blaspheme these past two months. Maybe Allah just had to get me down on my knees before I left His land...

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