The Multi-Faith Prayer Room at Heathrow

 I was only in the Heathrow Airport in london for a few hours, but I liked seeing so many Sikhs there. Having just seen a public demonstration by the local Sikh community in Madrid (where I was told that Sikhs are identifiable by their turban), I was excitedly to suddenly be recognizing people's religion by their head ware. Although it is likely a side effect of historical British imperialism in south Asia, I really enjoyed seeing this little bit a cultural diversity. It wasn't unusual for somebody working in a shop or a kiosk in the airport to be wearing a turban.

One thing I found especially amazing at Heathrow is that the airport had a prayer room. Not only were these individuals who believed in Islam accepted, but they were even accommodated to the extent that a place to pray was provided. Of course, it seemed to be a Islamic prayer room rather than actually a multi-faith prayer room, which I found to be interesting, but I found nothing wrong with it. If there is, hypothetically, a faith that requires men and women to pray together, these individuals can't very well pray in the same space as most Muslims, since Muslim men and women usually pray separately.

If you don't know, many types of Islamic faiths require it's adherents to pray several times a day. Unlike a Cristian prayer where you can just think about saying something to God, when a Muslim prays he or she is supposed to go down to the knees and speak the prayer. Since the prayer times each day are standardized, it is usually a community of people praying together, although if someone is traveling or out and about it is perfectly possible that they will find themselves praying alone. That being said, I know very little of Islam, so if I got anything wrong here or if I left out important facts, please leave a comment to let me know so I can correct it.