Friday prayers exhibition captures ‘love between brothers’

Aqib Anwar, who uses Instagram to share global snapshots of the power of coming together, brings his photograph series to Sikka Art and Design Festival

Aqib Anwar has been documenting what happens after Friday prayers for the past six years. Photo: Aqib Anwar

Friday prayers are a special experience for many Muslims worldwide. Whether in a grand mosque that can host thousands or a small room in the basement of a building, the ritual of coming together to perform Friday prayers is universal.

Indian photographer Aqib Anwar, who lives in Dubai, explores what happens after finishing those prayers. He's captured moments, including people exiting the mosque and greeting each other or children running home or off to their parent’s car. For six years, Anwar has documented these scenes through snapshots he has shared on Instagram.

The collection, titled Friday, is now on display at the Sikka Art and Design Festival in Al Shindagha. “The reason I started this was my own way back to faith,” Anwar tells The National. "The only constant in my life was Friday prayers because I’ve been going since I was a child."

Aqib Anwar's exhibition titled Friday at Sikka Art and Design Festival. Photo: Aqib Anwar

He also says he noticed there were a lot of negative portrayals of Muslim men in the media, so he decided to use his considerable following on Instagram to show a different side. He adds: “It’s about a sense of community, it's about love between fathers and sons. Love between neighbours and a shared sense of spirituality.”

Most of the images at the exhibition were taken at Al Farooq Omar bin Al Khattab Mosque in Jumeirah. The location reflects Dubai’s cultural and architectural tapestry. Anwar took the skills he learnt from shooting fashion shows in New York and London to create the compositions of his shots for the prayer series.

Two brothers leaving the mosque after concluding Friday prayers, as captured by Aqib Anwar for his series. Photo: Aqib Anwar

Anwar says that having travelled the world and performed Friday prayers in different cities, the experience is similar everywhere.

“I think the only difference is geography, apart from that, everything just feels familiar," he adds. "It's the same people. People who are dressed well come early. There are also people who come in at the last minute. Me and my brother call it the '95th-minute winner', they come right before the prayer starts. It's the same the world around in my opinion.”

Aqib Anwar at his exhibition titled Friday. Photo: Altamash Javed

The goal, Anwar says, is to create “a serene and immersive environment that reflects the essence of the Friday prayer moments". He adds that he purposefully chose the exhibition space to be small so that people could sense the intimacy displayed in the photos.

Anwar hopes that visitors – Muslim or not – experience this serenity and get a sense of what it’s like going to Friday prayers from his point of view, seeing what he calls the “moments of love between brothers". The space also functions as a carpeted space for those who want to pray.

He adds that the success of the exhibition has driven him to want to grow the series, taking it to different countries and capturing the same moments worldwide.

“Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed came for the opening and asked: ‘How are you thinking of taking this to a wider audience?’" he says. "I said: 'I want to make a book because I'm sitting on an archive of hundreds of Fridays over six years, but another friend also said I should take this to Europe, and I should take this to America because the diaspora there are craving to see imagery like this.'"

The exhibition is on at the Sikka Art and Design Festival until Sunday