A Dialogue beween Taliban and Technologist

Taliban: What do you recommend us to do in order to establish the system of Salat [Prayer] in Afghanistan?Ilamyar: What do you mean by establishing the system of Salat?

Taliban: I mean a system wherein the Muslim of Afghanistan are able to pray five times a day in their local mosques , Congregational [Friday] prayer in a larger mosque and Eid [Annual] Prayer in the largest mosque of the city?

Technologist: Please define local mosque, larger mosque and largest mosque?

Taliban: Local mosque should be a building which can accommodate between 1000 to 2000 persons.

1. It should have water supply system for ablution [a part of prayer in which certain parts of the body are washed with clean [not necessarily drinking] water.
2. It should have a room and bathroom for the in charge of the mosque.
3. It should have some provision of lighting and some sort of clean mat for the Muslims to stand for prayer.
4. Additionally there should be some audio arrangement for the call of prayer to be heard by the population around.
5. It would preferable if the floor of the mosque is not plain soil as it becomes muddy in case of rains.
6. The building should have a hall with solid roof to be safe from environmental conditions.
7. There should be a system of communication between the incharge of the mosque and the govt authority so he could be paid emoluments and other directives for his services regularly by the govt.
8. The communication should also ensure that he is offering his services in time and whatever responsibilities are assigned to him by the govt are being executed successfully and the population has no complaints in this regard.

Technologist: What do you mean by other directives? I want his job role so I could think of possible facilities he would need to complete his duties.

Taliban: It means the govt would like to keep a track of what lectures he is delivering to the people around, what sort of services is he offering, whether he is facing any problems and could the govt help him in overcoming the problems, plus any re-construction or repair related issues, allocation of funds for the mosques, visits by authorities etc.

Technologist: What about the housing facility of the incharge in case he is married?

Taliban: Yes there should be a room for the incharge in case he is bachelor; if he is married he would be offered a housing facility.

Technologist: I think I got a fairly good idea about your first requirement hence I would suggest the following before we go to your next requirement as your second and third requirement that is Juma [ Friday] and Eidgah [Annual Prayer] Mosques are just the extensions of your first requirement.

In my opinion the contents of your first requirement implies the following:

Let me opine about the first requirement - the system of timing for Salat [prayer]. The concept of five times prayer at specific times means that we need a time management system for the mosque. A basic form of it is the use of wall clocks. It can be programmed, to make it a bit sophisticated, so that it rings the bell at prayer times after being programmed for these timings based on the Muslim calendar. There are two ways to have the wall clocks on mass level. Either you will have to import them or you will have to produce them indigenously. If you import them you need to have a system for import/export in place in your country which can execute the transaction.

If you need a system for import/export you will either need to either pay the price in cash to the exporting partner or lend it on credit unless the exporter wants to give the goods as a gift to your country. In both cases you need a financial accounting system and a banking system to execute the transaction practically. On the other hand if you want to produce the clocks indigenously in your country then you need an industrial infrastructure for the production of clocks. This necessarily means that your country has industrial units which are manufacturing clocks on regular basis in your country. An industrial unit can either be domestic or commercial. Clocks manufacturing is not a home based industry it needs electronic circuits and other associated raw materials combined to become a finished product.

The electronic circuits need to be programmed in case you need digital circuits. This implies that you need the skills of software engineers and programmers. The age of clocks with mechanical machinery is over and mechanical or analog clocks are rarely used now a day. Similarly the commercial industrial unit would need to arrange for all the raw materials and spare parts needed for the manufacturing of digital clocks.