Musollah (Jogja)

Hard to tire of the small little musollah behind Pak Muh's stall at Beringharjo. Sometimes people seated at the head of the narrow passageway observe the observation and wonder to themselves. The interior measures something like 4.5 X 3m., with the prostration required fore-shortening further. Often women waited their turn outside on long low benches where they also restored themselves after their prayer. Within a remarkable scene of humped forms in gleaming white satin down on the rugs. As the girls at the clothing stalls at Beringharjo far outnumber the men it is this shrouded form that predominates on the floor of the musollah. Of course from behind one cannot see the faces. A certain kind of preparation in the features can be observed going in and coming out; sometimes profiles giving a hint of the attitudes being adopted. In a pass once Jo-Jo the dishwasher at Pak Muh was found on the right where the men kept when they attended spread-eagled on his back like an upturned turtle in a most ungainly pose. No way of knowing what that was about. In the Hindu temples in Singapore you often saw the full-length male prostration arms outstretched and forehead to the ground. It seems there is no call on the Hindu women to follow suit; on Shivaratri two years ago in Singapore there was no evidence of it among a great number of female devotees. Fridays in the neighbourhood in Singapore it was only ever men one saw filing off to the sermon. (In old Montenegro women were rare in the churches and when attending stood on the left at services. Funerals too they rarely attended; but then the famous keeners were of course women, who drew many notable foreign travelers to the high gravesides.) On the odd occasion at the Beringharjo musollah one saw a kind of chorus line, or sometimes even two lines in formation, all covered in the white robes that were provided, holding hands and moving in unison in the first stage of prostration. The brotherhood of Islam certainly extends to the sisters.