Prayer Room Rapidly Gains Popularity

In the Islamic faith, one of the five pillars that the religion is based upon is known as Salat, which directly translates to worship. Muslims typically pray five times a day, the noon prayer (Dhuhr) falling directly in the middle of fifth hour. For some Muslim students, finding a place to peacefully pray during the school day can be a challenge, but at Central, the dramatorium is set aside during lunch hours to provide young Muslims with a place to peacefully complete their midday prayers.

Although there was a similar setup last year, the prayer room has only recently attracted attention from Muslim students this year. With the help of Mrs. Kirksey, sophomore Sumayyah Rab and her sister got the prayer room up and running once again. For a while, it was just the two of them, but recently, Rab said that two other girls began coming during their lunch hour. “I think there is a large Muslim population in Central, but we’re not very connected with each other. I hope that this will serve to connect us as a community”.

She hopes that as word gets out about the prayer room, the number of attendees will grow.

“We usually bring our own prayer mats, which isn’t required but most prefer it since it’s a cleaner space”, Rab explained. “We put our prayer mats facing Mecca and pray for about ten to fifteen minutes, and then head back to class. All teachers have been very understanding of it, but most of us just go during lunch.”

Rab expressed her gratefulness to go to a school like Central where a program like this is possible and accepted by both the staff and the student body. It is a simple request to accommodate space to worship for students of any religion, but in some professional spaces, this gets overshadowed by non-accepting colleagues or higher-ups.

In a time of increasing and unfairly attributed islamophobia, the inclusivity of Central’s prayer room offers hope that there is a safe place for Muslim students to practice their freedom of religion.