Jordan is slightly over 90% Muslim and it doesn't take long to spot it.
There are mosques everywhere. In the cities they are often quite large, with towering minarets. However there are many smaller ones scattered about, with only a hint of a tower. The call to prayer goes up everywhere from loudspeakers, and they don't keep it quiet -- we hear our local one easily through the double glazing despite it being quite a distance away. If you stand in the right place you can hear two or three simultaneously, battling it out.
Friday morning is deserted, and very little is open. At midday you see significant numbers of men going to the mosques for Friday prayers. And then the afternoon is family time, with picnics if the weather is nice.
Schools and government offices take Friday and Saturday off in Jordan, but Saturday is just an ordinary work day for most shops etc.
However most Jordanians do not seem particularly fanatical in their observance. Few stop for prayers during the day – you see them sometimes in a quiet corner, generally older men, but only once or twice have we have seen families or women sitting quietly in prayer. My school pays no attention to the midday prayer time, although the more devout students and staff go to a classroom to pray during the 12:40 lunch break to make up for it.
Alcohol is freely available in bottle stores and some inner city restaurants. Beer is quite expensive, because of the tax rate, so they mostly drink spirits. There are few, if any bars serving alcohol, but the locals go to the equivalent where they smoke shisha (hookahs) which are extremely common.
Pork is available, but is not common at all. Similarly you don't see much shellfish or other haram (forbidden) food.
Most women wear a hijab. The current style is for quite tight fitting stretch fabric ones, often with a white layer underneath tight to the head. Generally they are coloured, often quite strongly, sometimes patterned. It seems many rural Christians wear the hijab too (certainly there weren't many people in Ajloun bare headed and that town is significantly Christian) although ones in Amman do not.
Chadors are quite rare, as are niqabs, but you see them about. I suspect most of the people wearing them are not natural Jordanians, being visiting Saudis, Iraqis or Syrian refugees etc.
A lot of younger and wealthier Muslim women go bare headed. The queen, for example, does not cover her head (except at a mosque) and at my school's parent-teacher night there were few women with covered heads, although one was wearing a black chador. Only a couple of girls at my school are covered.
What you don't see hardly at all is women wearing a loose scarf, Iranian style, since you might as well go without as do that. In our suburb about half the women are uncovered, but in the poorer areas and out in the country it drops off to only the odd one or two.
A few women wear the old-style black flowing robes, generally older and poorer ones. Mostly women wear trousers, often with a very long coat over if it is cold, or a fairly long top otherwise. The younger ones generally wear the same tight jeans as NZ kids wear. Necklines are generally high, and sleeves almost universally long.
You see men wearing robes too, again generally older guys, though it is quite common to see younger men wearing them on Friday. A few men wear the keffiyah headscarf.
The seems to be very little of the chaperoning the Saudis go for. You often see young women wandering by themselves around town. This isn't to say that the society isn't sexist, but it does seem to be that Jordan is liberalising slowly. There are some female police officers etc.
About 6% of Jordan in Christian, largely Orthodox, concentrated in the northwest. You certainly see churches about, and they have towers and visible crosses. The state takes the opposite view of most Arab countries in not stressing an Islamic nature. The Christian community know that keeping the monarchy is in their best interest as a bulwark against factionalism, and the King likes loyal subjects regardless of their faith. That helps prevent a slide into the sort of sectarian divisions that Lebanon and Syria have struggled with.
Catholicism is less common, except oddly in the schools. Traditionally Islamic schooling was via the madrassas attached to the mosques, and they had a well-earned reputation for being more focused on rote learning of "correct" answers than the modern world needs. Islamic parents have long sent their children to Christian schools, who had a reputation for learning before religion – and here that often meant ones run by Catholic nuns and fathers. So you find in Amman a De La Salle College, a Rosary Sisters school, a Franciscan Sisters school and so on. The students at these schools are largely Muslim, although obviously the Christian kids tend to go there too.
(The more recent private schools are secular taking advantage of a huge market, as getting on towards half of the students in Amman go to a fee-paying school. Many teach in English or French.)
There are mosques everywhere. In the cities they are often quite large, with towering minarets. However there are many smaller ones scattered about, with only a hint of a tower. The call to prayer goes up everywhere from loudspeakers, and they don't keep it quiet -- we hear our local one easily through the double glazing despite it being quite a distance away. If you stand in the right place you can hear two or three simultaneously, battling it out.
The big central mosque in Amman.
Friday morning is deserted, and very little is open. At midday you see significant numbers of men going to the mosques for Friday prayers. And then the afternoon is family time, with picnics if the weather is nice.
Schools and government offices take Friday and Saturday off in Jordan, but Saturday is just an ordinary work day for most shops etc.
However most Jordanians do not seem particularly fanatical in their observance. Few stop for prayers during the day – you see them sometimes in a quiet corner, generally older men, but only once or twice have we have seen families or women sitting quietly in prayer. My school pays no attention to the midday prayer time, although the more devout students and staff go to a classroom to pray during the 12:40 lunch break to make up for it.
Alcohol is freely available in bottle stores and some inner city restaurants. Beer is quite expensive, because of the tax rate, so they mostly drink spirits. There are few, if any bars serving alcohol, but the locals go to the equivalent where they smoke shisha (hookahs) which are extremely common.
Pork is available, but is not common at all. Similarly you don't see much shellfish or other haram (forbidden) food.
Most women wear a hijab. The current style is for quite tight fitting stretch fabric ones, often with a white layer underneath tight to the head. Generally they are coloured, often quite strongly, sometimes patterned. It seems many rural Christians wear the hijab too (certainly there weren't many people in Ajloun bare headed and that town is significantly Christian) although ones in Amman do not.
Some examples of some of the common two layer hijab worn in Jordan
Chadors are quite rare, as are niqabs, but you see them about. I suspect most of the people wearing them are not natural Jordanians, being visiting Saudis, Iraqis or Syrian refugees etc.
A lot of younger and wealthier Muslim women go bare headed. The queen, for example, does not cover her head (except at a mosque) and at my school's parent-teacher night there were few women with covered heads, although one was wearing a black chador. Only a couple of girls at my school are covered.
What you don't see hardly at all is women wearing a loose scarf, Iranian style, since you might as well go without as do that. In our suburb about half the women are uncovered, but in the poorer areas and out in the country it drops off to only the odd one or two.
A few women wear the old-style black flowing robes, generally older and poorer ones. Mostly women wear trousers, often with a very long coat over if it is cold, or a fairly long top otherwise. The younger ones generally wear the same tight jeans as NZ kids wear. Necklines are generally high, and sleeves almost universally long.
You see men wearing robes too, again generally older guys, though it is quite common to see younger men wearing them on Friday. A few men wear the keffiyah headscarf.
The seems to be very little of the chaperoning the Saudis go for. You often see young women wandering by themselves around town. This isn't to say that the society isn't sexist, but it does seem to be that Jordan is liberalising slowly. There are some female police officers etc.
About 6% of Jordan in Christian, largely Orthodox, concentrated in the northwest. You certainly see churches about, and they have towers and visible crosses. The state takes the opposite view of most Arab countries in not stressing an Islamic nature. The Christian community know that keeping the monarchy is in their best interest as a bulwark against factionalism, and the King likes loyal subjects regardless of their faith. That helps prevent a slide into the sort of sectarian divisions that Lebanon and Syria have struggled with.
It may not look much, but this is supposedly the site of the
the oldest purpose built Christian church known, in Aqaba.
the oldest purpose built Christian church known, in Aqaba.
Catholicism is less common, except oddly in the schools. Traditionally Islamic schooling was via the madrassas attached to the mosques, and they had a well-earned reputation for being more focused on rote learning of "correct" answers than the modern world needs. Islamic parents have long sent their children to Christian schools, who had a reputation for learning before religion – and here that often meant ones run by Catholic nuns and fathers. So you find in Amman a De La Salle College, a Rosary Sisters school, a Franciscan Sisters school and so on. The students at these schools are largely Muslim, although obviously the Christian kids tend to go there too.
(The more recent private schools are secular taking advantage of a huge market, as getting on towards half of the students in Amman go to a fee-paying school. Many teach in English or French.)
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