RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty has lost promi­nent lead­ers to COVID-19 and now that re­stric­tions are be­ing lift­ed to­day, in time for Ra­madan, there is a warn­ing for Mus­lims to con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise cau­tion be­cause the pan­dem­ic is far from over.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3, Imam Raf­fa­ic Mo­hamed, PRO of An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), said Mus­lims were be­ing giv­en in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for man­ag­ing COVID-19.

The fast­ing pe­ri­od of Ra­madan start­ed yes­ter­day.

Imam Mo­hammed said dur­ing Ra­madan, each Masjid Com­mit­tee was free to or­gan­ise its events as need­ed whilst main­tain­ing mask-wear­ing and so­cial dis­tanc­ing. “The Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty is elat­ed by what is hap­pen­ing in terms of bring­ing back nor­mal­cy. Every masjid is run by a com­mit­tee and peo­ple will be able to op­er­ate by their frame­work. We are say­ing to Mus­lims, if you are feel­ing un­well, don’t come to the Masjid be­cause then you will pol­lute every­one. We will al­low every­one to make the de­ci­sion but you have to fol­low Min­istry of Health guide­lines about so­cial dis­tanc­ing and wash­ing hands,” Imam Mo­hammed said dur­ing the in­ter­view on Fri­day.

Among those who died from COVID were long-stand­ing AS­JA pres­i­dent Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali and head of the Table­land AS­JA Masjid Imam Sheik Nazrudeen Mo­hammed.

Imam Mo­hammed had this mes­sage for Mus­lims.

“Be cau­tious, you’re not free from COVID. Take your time, of­fer your If­tar and din­ner and do it but be very cau­tious in car­ry­ing out the func­tions. This will es­tab­lish our broth­er­hood stronger.”

He said Mus­lims should make full use of the month of Ra­mad­han, not­ing, “By end of the month you will re­ceive the bless­ing. It’s a month of school­ing. When we en­gage in vol­un­tary prayers, when we sit and con­tem­plate God, it brings about hap­pi­ness and makes us feel dif­fer­ent. That to­geth­er­ness brings about that joy.”

But not all Mus­lims are re­turn­ing to the mosques, de­spite the ease in re­stric­tions.

Trinidad Mus­lim League pres­i­dent Farz Khan says that al­though some of the COVID-19 re­stric­tions have been re­moved, the virus is still here and the pan­dem­ic has not been of­fi­cial­ly de­clared over by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

“We are still ask­ing mem­bers of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty to be cau­tious and still ad­here to mask-wear­ing and stay home if you are not feel­ing well. We are still lim­it­ing close in­ter­ac­tion with each oth­er. At the TML, we are not hav­ing un­nec­es­sary large gath­er­ings such as if­tar (break­ing of the fast)and din­ners. The pre­ferred op­tion is still ask­ing fam­i­lies to break the fast at home,” he re­vealed.

Be­cause of the bi­ol­o­gy of the virus, Khan said it con­tin­ues to ex­ist and peo­ple are still get­ting in­fect­ed.

“The Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty is ad­vised not to dis­re­gard all of the pub­lic health mea­sures and to ex­er­cise dis­ci­pline and con­cern for each oth­er’s health and well­be­ing,” Khan added.

Mean­while, the di­rec­tor of the ASH-NAD Foun­da­tion, Nadeira Khan, said her fam­i­ly is stay­ing at home dur­ing Ra­madan.

“While the Taraweeh (spe­cial night­ly prayers dur­ing Ra­madan) prayers will now be held at the var­i­ous mosques, most are not hav­ing the If­tar to break the fast at the mosque in the usu­al way we are ac­cus­tomed to do­ing (eat­ing pub­licly among our­selves). This is a pre­cau­tion and to avoid ex­ces­sive min­gling and fur­ther spread­ing,” she said.

She added, “Those who want to pro­vide If­tar to mem­bers of their mosques are us­ing the curb­side pick­up method which has proven to be very ef­fec­tive. We are urged to be care­ful and use our own prayer mats to main­tain a sense of aware­ness and to re­mind our­selves that it is not over yet.”

Khan ad­mit­ted that some in­di­vid­u­als are al­so get­ting a lit­tle car­ried away and still wear­ing their masks on their chins.  

“I have lost friends and rel­a­tives over the past two years due to Covid-19 and I refuse to be care­less and in­con­sid­er­ate. I do not be­lieve the pan­dem­ic is com­plete­ly over. I will do my If­tar sep­a­rate­ly mean­ing that my fam­i­ly and I will be gift­ing our friends and rel­a­tives with food to break their fast dur­ing the month of Ra­madan on dif­fer­ent days, by de­liv­er­ing food to their homes, while ob­tain­ing strict pro­to­col prac­tices,” she added.