AIBU to question praying and sleeping in the library kids area?

[sunshine240778474]

Yesterday I took the kids to the local library (Inverness, scotland). The local library has a kids area. The kids area has a nice artificial grass mat for the kids to sit and read their books on.

When I entered the library there was a man who had folded the kids mat over so he could kneel on the floor and pray to Allah.

Therefore this prevented the kids from sitting on the mat and reading their books.
The man was praying for a while.

I don't have a problem with someone praying if that's what they want to do.

Is it appropriate to be doing it in the kids area in a local library?

Also, there was a woman curled up in the corner of the library sleeping. This was also in the kids area.

I've seen people sleeping in the library on a few occasions now. I've never seen it in the kids' area.

Ofcourse, I feel sorry for her if she's tired, but again is it appropriate to be using the local library, especially the kids area, as a shelter?

I left the library, and told the staff politely, I didn't find it kid friendly.

Was I being unreasonable?

Libraries are notorious for attracting people with nowhere else to go, like the sleeping woman. How this is managed depends on the staff really. They should have probably asked her to move to another area. Similarly, if they serve an area with a high proportion of people who wish to pray, an allocated room is often provided. A children's mat in an area with people coming and going, and possibly posters on the wall would be very inadequate for prayers. If it was my library I'd leave some feedback to suggest they offered a different space for prayers.

Pp was responding to a more generalised point though - this:

Adults in children's areas is not appropriate and shouldn't be happening if there is an alternative

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make by drawing a distinction between this specific man ‘hanging around’ and him ‘praying’ but I sincerely hope you are not trying to justify that man being in the children’s area?

That man you are referring to had no purpose or justification to be in that children’s space. Him praying is irrelevant. You also have no idea what he was doing before and after praying - he may have been there for some time and the praying only takes 10 mins afaik.

Yes, they’ve closed the toilets in the city centre library near here, because they were being used by substance-dependent homeless people who frequented the library to shoot up. The drugs are new(ish), but there were certainly homeless people using the library to sleep and stay warm in when I was first using it in the 70s.

I'm not sure of the specific denomination they belong to but I see a huge amount of Christian women preaching/quoting the Bible in the street.
I am regularly told "Jesus loves you" while walking down certain streets or travelling on specific buses.
A bus I use regularly often has a women who prays loudly (depending on who the other passengers are she sometimes gets an "Amen") or quotes from the Bible.
That doesn't bother me to be honest.
I was tempted to tell one women to f off when she said my daughter could be "healed" (she was in a wheelchair at the time following an operation) if I embraced Jesus. My daughter was healing - it was why she was using a wheelchair 🙄😁

For most religions, there are different requirements for male and female praying. For example in Judaism and Islam the men have multiple daily prayers and for the women it's more related to activity, so you're much more likely to see the men praying.

I evidently wasn’t trying to justify his being there, as I did say it’s not the appropriate space.

The distinction I was making is that comments around “lone men hanging around” clearly carry connotations of risk, and nefarious intent.

He was praying, aside from the fact it’s not a suitable environment for that, it doesn’t present any risk to my child.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to leap to the conclusion that he may be a paedophile, for example, because he was praying in the wrong place.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to leap to the conclusion that he may be a paedophile, for example, because he was praying in the wrong place.

@SleeplessInWherever

As part of my job I try to keep the library a safe place for all users. In my time I have had to deal with, drunks, drug users, stealing, and many forms of anti social behaviour. And many many creepy men. I I won't apologise here for saying creepy men. Because it is almost always men. A lone man, in the children's area, to my mind is always suspicious. Always.

That’s good. The man in this occasion should have been asked to move too.

By the staff there that is.

Absolutely nothing in an appropriate place which a child's section of the library isnt.

The distinction I was making is that comments around “lone men hanging around” clearly carry connotations of risk, and nefarious intent.

Yes! For millions of very good reasons every year globally. We should all be suspicious of lone men hanging around in children’s spaces. Anyone that isn’t needs to have a look at the world in which we exist.

You are making a false distinction.

Why is ‘lone man hanging around in a children’s area for an unknown period of time and spending 10 minutes of that praying’ any better than ‘lone man hanging around in a children’s area’?

He may have just rocked up, budged the children out of the way, moved the mat, spent 10 mins praying and left straightaway, or he may have been in the space for much longer than that.

Neither option is acceptable and it is a worry that some are suggesting it shouldn’t raise alarm bells.

Eh? What a weird interpretation. You sound paranoid

Libraries shouldn't be there to soak up the results of a fraying society: homelessness, people using it for their own religious purposes (unless they've booked a room for it), drug addicts etc. Libraries should be a little oasis of calm and good manners in a chaotic world. We don't want another safe space being surrendered to the mob.

Maybe their religions should evolve so that the requirements for men were the same as for women. That would be more compatible with living in a western secular or traditionally Christian society.

I don’t think it’s weird at all. The choice of location is inflammatory and meant to mark territory. It’s beyond entitled

I think if we’re questioning people’s mental health, then the random guy talking to an invisible supernatural being in the children’s area of the library might be a higher priority than me.

This is what happens, public toilets are closed, people stop using libraries, public transport becomes undesirable and dangerous. Who will stop this decline?

Well exactly- religions should adapt so men and women are equal. If not, I don’t think they have a place in society. Up to people what they do privately but out and about, in society these archaic misogynistic rules have no place.

"if they serve an area with a high proportion of people who wish to pray, an allocated room is often provided"

I hope this is not provided for free. All communities should be treated the same. Anything else breeds resentment which doesn't benefit anyone in the long run.

We cannot possibly think it’s reasonable to decide what other people’s religion does and doesn’t require.

I agree that a library isn’t a suitable place for prayer, unless a member of staff in the library directed him to that space rather than somewhere private, in which case it’s obviously their fault too.

But stating what people can and can’t believe isn’t acceptable, even if you personally don’t have a religious belief (which I don’t).

Christianity (Catholicism in particular) and Judaism also have strict rules governing women’s behaviour and bodies, despite existing in Western, predominantly secular societies. Are they okay with you because they are white people’s religions?

Edited: for clarity, I am an atheist who has no truck with any organised religion myself, but I believe we are right to have religious tolerance in this country where we allow freedom of religion and religious expression to everyone, within the law. I am interested to know how far people making statements like yours have previously expressed disquiet about any other religion in the same way, and what might be different about people who follow the Islamic faith.

Yes, asking a Muslim to stop praying on the floor of a library is just the sort of thing that might fall foul of this legislation. That would be enough to deter the librarians from doing anything. It will just increase resentment.

The Free Speech Union are currently fighting against it and they have some very clever lawyers.

This..the children's section is for children in our library.

Resentment from whom? Atheists who think religious people should have to pay to pray?
I wouldn't have thought so, or there would be a big hue and cry about the government grants for the maintenance of churches from atheists, which is obviously far more costly than making a small room in a library available for the religious.

I am a Londoner, know and have known many Muslims as colleagues, fellow parents when my offspring was at school and neighbours. I have never in my life known one who would pray like that in a public library. They pray (those who adhere to the religion), at home or in the mosque.

All I can say is this man is a very eccentric Muslim. Britain is known for its tolerance of eccentricities; the only thing to say to children who may witness this is that it takes all sorts, he is doing no harm.

It could well create a problem if loads of people did that in a public place or an average work place but they don't.

There are eccentrics and fanatics in every religion, some of whom go public and even publicly proselytise. I doubt this man was praying for very long, the ritual prayers are generally 5-10 minutes.

He doesn’t actually have to pray there, he can make up the prayer later, he’s just being a selfish git stopping children from using their own area. He should have been told to move.