Saving shoes

Chairman emeritus of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet Jamshed N. Guzder often relates the story of how his new pair of shoes was stolen while he prayed at a fire temple. He shrugged off the incident saying if the shoes helped a needy person, so be it.

But stealing shoes has become a big business, at least outside mosques in the Middle East. An item in The Hindustan Times of July 18, 2005 from AFP states, "More and more of Dubai’s well-heeled men are discovering that the shoes they remove when they go into a mosque to pray have been stolen by the time they come out.

"‘Police have posted officers at the gates of mosques during prayer times, especially on Fridays, to arrest the thieves red-handed,’ Saif al-Jabri, head of Islamic Guidance at Dubai Department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities told Khaleej Times.

"The problem has spread to the nearby affluent Gulf emirate of Sharja, according to a police source. ‘More than 40 complaints of shoe theft from mosques are received every month by various police stations, in Sharja,’ he said.

"The police, who have recently succeeded in arresting culprits red-handed, have learned that the stolen shoes are being copied and sold in foreign markets.

"‘The thieves confessed to the police that they were stealing only expensive shoes with unique designs not available in the United Arab Emirates markets,’ said the police source.

"‘The stolen shoes are sold to shoe manufacturers in Oman who duplicate them and offer them on sale cheaper. These manufacturers pay them 50 dirhams (Rs 600) per pair,’ they said.

"Police in both emirates have instructed imams to arrange closets with locks at mosque entrances and to advise worshippers not to wear expensive shoes when coming to pray.”