Mosqmode - Pray in Comfort

Picture this scenario….

You are in a mosque in a row of worshippers, trying hard to blank out distractions and disturbances from your mind as you seek to get connected to the Almighty. As your thoughts begin to clear and you feel the sacred verses begin to bring meaning, you are rudely ejected out of your peaceful state by the irritating noise of a ringing handphone.

Sounds Familiar?

It doesn't stop there. At times you are fortunate enough that the perpetrator is immediately aware of the disturbance and acts quickly to silence it. More often than not, the unfortunate sound would echo throughout the holy room at will until it quietens on its own accord when the caller gives up.

This is one the pitfalls of the smartphone. We are able to master the intricacies of its functions, yet we miss out on the larger task of controlling its use.

Countless attempts are made in mosques and places of worship throughout the world each day to put a lid on this nuisance. Reminders ranging from the stern to the humorous, verbal to visual, are evident in most mosques. Some mosque administrators even install jammers to ensure worldly signals are blocked from passing through the sacred walls and disrupt the serenity. Yet, as many worshippers can attest to, such disturbances still occur with alarming regularity.

For those that do develop the admirable habit of putting their mobile phones to silent, what follows the worship is the mundane task of putting the smart phone back to normal mode. Perhaps the extremely ordinary and simple task makes it equally easy to neglect, leading to unnecessary missed calls and messages.

It is time for technology to evolve and resolve such dreary issues.

Mosqmode is an app that attempts to do the following: puts the smartphone in vibrate mode when it detects a worshipper entering a mosque for worship and places it back into normal mode when the worshipper completes his task.

Mosqmode is meant to run automatically. It removes the manual task, eliminating tardiness and forgetfulness from the equation.

How it works

Once installed on your phone (Android, and Apple soon), Mosqmode's preferred form is to run full time, automatically, with the phone GPS and location-setting turned on.

Mosqmode would detect the user's location via Google maps and whenever the user stops at a location which has been marked as a 'Mosque' or 'Masjid' by the map application, Mosqmode would wait for a predetermined time via a delay timer. If the user remains at the mosque location, Mosqmode assumes the user is there for worship, and upon completion of the delay timer, Mosqmode automatically puts the phone to vibrate mode. It will stay that way until the user leaves the mosque when the app will switch back to normal mode.

If the location is not set, Mosqmode has to be activated manually. This is done by the user simply uttering the phrases "Allahuakbar" or "Subhanallah". Once activated, Mosqmode puts the phone into vibrate for a predetermined time which can be set by the user.

There is an exception to the above when Mosqmode is called upon on a Friday. As the Friday prayer is lengthier than normal services, Mosqmode puts the phone into vibrate for a longer period. Mosqmode assumes activations between 11am and 2pm on a Friday as one for Friday prayer session, and puts the phone into vibrate for an additional 90 minutes on top of the predetermined time.