WHEN: 1/13/12
TIME: 2:30PM
WHERE: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: ISLAMIC ART EXHIBITION
Two friends, a prayer rug and plenty of courage to pray in front of head of security who denied our right to pray.
"People can pray at the Met!?"- Unbelievable and indeed intriguing, but hearing from a friend working with the Met that Muslim prayer is allowed at the recently renovated Islamic art exhibition , I took the chance to make use of the opportunity. After five confirmations from the museum that it is in fact true that people can pray at the met my two friends and I stood ready to start prayer when a sudden decision rounded by two head security guards flashing their badges was made that we can't pray after all. Thirty minutes later the last but not least excuse was that people with two eyes, common sense, and extra pair of eyes from security would trip over us and fall, besides from having the gallery like space having nothing to really do with Islam ( As in people practicing Islam).
Reasons are the respected reasons that apply to the museum ground rules, but I say why the sudden change of mind after soo many confirmations? Following the constitution, my friends and I did exactly what we came to do and went ahead and prayed. Educational for my two friends, for the strangers looking at us strangely and certainly for me standing up for myself, and a world of people.
