Do you know how to perform sholat in space? This is how you do it ..

News24xx.com - Have you ever wondered how astronauts do sholat in space? This question has arisen when Malaysia sent their first astronaut to International Space Station (ISS) for 10 days.

Sheikh Muszapha Shukor was sent to ISS on October 10th 2007. At that time, fasting month was only two days left. However, Shukor, who had fast during his training, said that he would still want to continue fasting in ISS.

The problem is, ISS goes around the earth 16 times in a day, which means that sun rises every 90 minutes. There is also microgravitation in ISS which makes it hard for astronauts to kneel.

This is answered by Malaysian National Fatwa Council, who released a guide book of how to pray in ISS. They say that fasting can be done in space or you can qada’ (compensate) it when you are back on earth. When you fast on space, your time of fasting is based on the timeline of the location you take off from. The same goes for sholat. The time for sholat in space is based on the timeline of the location the astronauts take off from.

When it is hard to pinpoint where the kaaba in Mecca is, then you can point toward the earth as the qibla (the direction to where Muslims face to when praying). For wudhu, you can clean yourselves with wet tissues or towels.

If astronauts cannot stand upright, then they can stand with any posture. If standing is hard, astronauts can sit with bent over position where the chin is close to the knees. If the astronauts cannot change their postures at all, then the National Fatwa Council suggested for them to use eyelids as indicators of posture changes.

 

 

 

 

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