Saturday, January 12, 2013

Praying in Incheon

Update 14 Feb 2013:
I wrote a story about my experience finding prayer rooms in ICN. It's published by Crescentrating here http://www.crescentrating.com/en/explore-southkorea-for-muslim-halal-travelers/item/3143-praying-made-easy-in-incheon-international-airport.html.
Pictures are here https://picasaweb.google.com/112239297730106550862/Korea08_ICNandFlight?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvMhu33s4TyBA

According to our flight schedule, we'll arrive at Incheon airport (ICN) at 1610 after departing from LCCT at 0850. As it's winter in Korea, maghrib will be around 1745. That means we'll have only about 1 hour to do jama' ta'khir of Zuhur and Asar if we cannot make a complete prayer inside the flight.

So I tried to find out info about praying in ICN as well as masjids in Incheon. There are 5 options to think about praying Zuhur and Asar on the day we leave for Seoul.

Option 1: Praying in the plane

This tool helps to prepare for praying inside the aircraft http://www.crescentrating.com/en/air-travel-prayer-time-calculator.html. Here's the result for my particular travel




KUL-ICN on flight at time 0850-1610

ICN-KUL on flight at time 1730-2300

Option 2: Praying in the airport upon arrival

Then I'm glad to know that there are 3 prayer rooms in ICN airport! Only that they are multireligion prayer rooms. Here's taken from http://www.crescentrating.com/en/south-korea-airports-guide-for-muslims/1666-incheon-international.html.

"The airport has three prayer rooms in the Duty free zone. All three are on the fourth floor; two on the west side and one is on the east side. They are all open 24 hours and are intended for all religions."

Update: here's the page about the prayer room in the airport's website. Thanks Crescentrating for giving me this link! http://www.airport.kr/iiacms/pageWork.iia?_scode=C2603030900

the sign reads 기도실 (gidosil, but sounds like kidosyiei)


Option 3: Praying in Masjids / Islamic centre in Incheon 

Look like they are not very close to the airport.
http://wikimapia.org/3269673/Bupyeong-Masjid
https://sites.google.com/site/mosquealhuda/contactus

Option 4: Praying in Seoul Grand Masjid, Itaewon

The masjid is located in downtown Seoul. It may take about 1 hour to reach from the airport. The AREX express train from the airport will take 43 minutes to arrive Seoul station. In order to reach Itaewon, need to take subway. I didn't study the route yet, so I don't know how long is the entire journey. But it can possibly give us a panic attack as there's a big possibility that we can only reach the masjid very near to maghrib time, or even after maghrib. So better don't plan to pray Zuhur/Asar there on that day. If for maghrib/isya, then it's ok.

Option 5: Praying in our guesthouse. 

As our guesthouse is near to Seoul Station, catching Zuhur/Asar prayer in our guesthouse may be possible. But it's less than 30mins to maghrib. So better not to make it as our 1st choice.

Conclusion

I think the best option is praying in the multireligion prayer room in ICN. If we cannot find the prayer room, we'll just pray anywhere suitable in the airport. I'll consider praying inside the aircraft if the flight is delayed that we won't have enough time to do Zohor and Asar in either LCCT or ICN.

Whatever my choice, I need to have wudhu' before departure and try to stay in wudhu' as long as possible. Another thing to think of is to wear khuf so that there's no need to wash the feet during wudhu'. The question is, where can I find khuf?

2 comments:

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  2. When I arrived at Incheon and already passed through the immigration, the information counter outside told me that the prayer room is located “after the immigration”, which I assumed it can only be visited by people who are “departing” and not for those who are “arriving” to Incheon.
    Maybe the information staff didn’t give me more detailed info because of the language problem, but based on your experience, was there any prayer room that you could use after arrival inside the airport?

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