By Nicola Johnston
During a recent trip to Incheon International Airport, I was pleased to notice the new addition of a prayer room to the list of facilities at the airport.
My husband was taking a long flight, and, as Muslims, we both wanted to pray one of our five daily prayers before he took the flight.
After eventually finding the (badly signposted) prayer room, hidden away in some dark corner of the new section of the airport, our hopes were dashed.
We walked through the door and found segregated prayer rooms. There were three elaborately decorated rooms, one for Christians, one for Catholics and one for Buddhists.
Where was the Muslim prayer room? If they chose to segregate the prayer rooms, then they should have a room for each faith, not just the top three most popular religions in Korea, especially as Muslims would probably use the prayer room the most.
I understand that if people see Muslims praying before a flight it can make them nervous because of an unfair stereotype, but it should not stop them from creating space for Muslims to pray.
Incheon International Airport is striving to be the best airport in Asia, with the main competition coming from Hong Kong and Singapore. It will never beat those airports until it is fully open to everyone.
Hong Kong Airport also has a prayer room, which I have used, and it is a multi-faith room that is open to all religions.
It contains Bibles, Qurans, prayer mats, chairs, a compass pointing toward Mecca and even a small place to take wudu (the ritual cleansing of the body before praying), that, coupled with the fact that it is easy to find amongst the departure gates, makes it an enjoyable airport to travel through.
Muslims have lived in Korea since 1976 and currently 35,000 Muslims live in South Korea.
Islam is the world's fastest growing religion amongst people of every cultural background, and for Incheon to become a truly first class international airport, it will have to take a more welcoming stance to better appeal to international travelers.
For a Muslim, South Korea is a very difficult country to live in because there is very little awareness about Islam and it is almost impossible to find food at Korean restaurants that do not contain pork.
For Incheon Airport to become truly international and to encourage more Muslims to use it as a transit destination, I would like to see them stop discriminating against Muslims by adding a Muslim prayer room and to improve on current sign posting in the future, so that other people can pray in peace before they travel.
The writer can be reached at nicolalouisejohnston@yahoo.co.uk
[출처 : 코리아타임스]
