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.
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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 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).
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