Inspired by Marcel Mauss, this article argues that prayer, besides its evident theological and doctrinal aspects, is a ceremony that allows subjects to think about their social, political and economic conditions. This argument will be explored through an ethnography about Bangladeshis, that sustain a transnational livelihood between Portugal and Bangladesh, carried out between 2003 e 2008. Through such exercise, I intend to show how discourses and practices around and about salat, the five daily prayers of the Islamic calendar, reveal several aspects of the migratory experience and the place of Bangladeshis in Portugal. It will be further argued that prayer is not only a metaphor but also a key ritual practice through which certain segments and actors act upon the world they live in.
Salat; Islam; Transnationalism; Bangladeshis; Lisbon