Gamatkhona 11

Gamatkhona mosque, Khorog

The modern Shia mosque in Khorog - the Gamatkhona - was funded by the Imam Aga Kahn 4 who, I am surprised to learn, lives in Switzerland. He is 65 or 66 years old and, when he retires, he will choose a successor - most likely a son (I ask irrelevantly if the Oman's kids went to US private schools as I may have me one or two at Brown in the after hours in no state of affairs. Makhfird blanks me).

Practicing Shia pray every day, seven-days a week, at 4am and 6pm, filling the mosque with men and women who pray together (unlike Sunni). Eitan and I would be hard pressed in service at this early hour though not far off from the swimming practice of my youth.

Unlike Sunni, who pray five times a day, there is no call to prayer, which is so haunting in Sunni Muslim cities.

Shia: "the Muslims of the branch of Islam comprising sects believing in Ali and the Imams as the only rightful successors of Mohammad and in the concealment and messianic return of the last recognised Imam."