How to practice religion in IB

I try my best to practice my religion, praying 5 times a day etc. I will be starting in couple of months but how do I let my staffers / RM know that I have to pray 5 times a day, all I need is a quiet corner and 5-10min. How do I approach this … I understand reputation is very important in the beginning so in essence I don’t want to be looked at “ that guy”. Or I don’t want people to look down upon me because of me praying in office. Thanks ( I understand certain situations and fire drill I can’t pray exactly on time which I can make up for)

18 Comments
 

Why are you in banking if you’re that serious about your religion, you realize it’s all based on riba..

Either way, you can let your staffer know and assure them it won’t affect workflow and let your deal teams know, but work super hard and go the extra mile on everything and no one will care. Just don’t disappear during crucial times (book needs to go out in next 30 mins etc) and be flexible with your prayer timings as needed.

 

Appreciate it, and I get where you are coming from about riba and this is something I always ask myself , I am at EB m&a and even than the concept about riba there is debatable since it’s pure “advisory” some say it’s okay some say it’s not … at this point the least I can do is maintain my prayer

 

What a ridiculous thing to ask! It's not your place to question the religious motivations behind someone, talk about a walking HR case. You're in banking, surely you know (or should do, anyway) that there are areas which are free of riba? ECM, M&A Advisory, Islamic banking/sukuk ... 

 
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Currently have been in the industry for 4 years - working for both buy and sell side - ignore the username. 
 

Perfectly ok to let your staffer and junior deal team members know that you’re going to be obliged to pray, realistically 3-4x a day (Fajr and Isha can be prayed at home) with the understanding that you can’t leave in the middle of meetings, crucial deal junctures, presentations, etc. In this day and age, I’ve never been stopped once when needing to pray and have set a weekly hold on my calendar to step out for an hour to go pray jummah at the local mosque on Fridays. People are understanding and respecting of religious beliefs and for me personally, staying true to this has only earned me respect from colleagues who appreciate me not deviating from my principles (I.e. having a backbone) - of course, assuming your performance doesn’t suffer. Be smart and over communicate - you’ll be fine. If your firm does have a problem, you don’t want to be working at that firm for very long. 
 

P.S. Though the VP who posted above provided useful advice, why question the nature of a person’s beliefs and career choices over a simple question? Ridiculous. 

 

Appreciate, and yea jummah is a big one for me I have to figure that part since my group is a sweatshop, so I have to yet ask to leave for 30-45min. thank you for your insights really appreciate, I guess one more questions is how do you keep your identity as a Muslim in this industry where everyone is pretty much different from me religious wise and cultural wise.This is a very stupid questions but would love your thoughts.

 

We just have big empty office rooms and that’s about to, but yea thank you guys appreciate it

 

Thank you! It should take 5-10min max, the staffer is pretty chill or I guess I should the people on the floor now are much more flexible compared to previous years, it’s something I have to get used to

 

Bro realistically its 2022, your bank will be far more concerned with the negative PR of discriminating you praying vs the lost minutes from you praying. Recently read a linkedin post of a muslim girl working for a law firm where the firm went above and beyond for her to bring a chaperone on a visit to a client.

 
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From my knowledge we had only

One other guy couple years back with same background who only fasted, it’s probably my mind I am scared to ask because I am the only one in my group / class from this background, so it’s more pyschological

 

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