Mamdouh Ismail, an Egyptian member of the parliament had a difficult moment at work recently, he realized that once again the discussions in the house of Egypt’s politics were running late and that he might miss his noon prayer, he decided to call upon all believers to go and pray, because who needs to run a country when god is sitting and waiting for his loyal subjects to once again through themselves at his feet?

Surprisingly this met the anger of other members of the parliament, first for disturbing the issue (the riots of the soccer game of last month, who cost the lives of many people and outraged most of the population of the country) but it was not only for the mere disturbance that the caller faced objections, many thought that this was in fact a challenge to the other members of parliament to go and pray, a mild suggestion by the caller that they are not as religious as he is.

The outrage was caused mainly by this, and not by the fact that these people are in charge of a country which is, for the last year, in a constant state of chaos and civil unrest. It does not look like the Islamic god (or any other god) is trying to help Egypt out of the poor state it is in, and nevertheless some people think it is a good idea to suspend political discussion in prayer to an unresponsive god.