Although COVID-19 prevented Muslims from celebrating Eid with lavish services at mosques across the country, it did not prevent one San Juan masjid from preparing Zakat al-Fitr charity given to those less fortunate at the end of Ramadan.
Speaking to Guardian Media in the car park of the Nur-E-Islam Masjid in San Juan on Sunday, Imam Sharaz Ali said like many other Muslims across the world, their prayers were said in strict compliance with physical distancing rules.
“We streamed our sermon today (yesterday) and I think it was very well received, there were just a few people in the mosque but everyone was watching on television, on Facebook and it was on the radio as well, so I think everything went well,” Ali said.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic had made the month of Ramadan difficult for many Muslims.
“Ramadan is very much a social event. People would come together, pray together and break their fast together every night and there would be so many different programmes offered, but this year, of course, we weren’t allowed to have people come to the mosque. People found it really distressing, they couldn’t come to break fast, to join with their brothers and sisters.”
But he said he and other elders tried to encourage members to see the positives of the stay-at-home orders, especially spending more time with their families.
He said Islam teaches that the greater the sacrifice a Muslim makes, the greater reward they will receive.
“There would have been a great sacrifice because people would have had to push themselves a little further to get that zeal to do what they could have done because Ramadan is a month of blessings for the believers, and as much as you could do, you will get blessings for.”
He said in preparing for Eid, the masjid elders realised there were many families suffering for food, hence their hamper drive.
“We decided to keep the masjid open and have our workers here and we were making hampers for the entire month. We sent out over 1,000 hampers for the month. People would come and line up, sometimes the police would come, they would help us as well to give out hampers, so we realised there was a need,” he said.
He said on previous Eid celebrations, about 1,200 people would show up at the masjid for Eid celebrations. With those plans obviously on hold this year, the masjid still decided to continue its charity yesterday.
“There are many other people who are in need. We decided instead of having a celebration, we would do this,” Ali said.
“I just made one call, I just said one day to a few people to come in 1.30 on the day of Eid and we will give you something. We prepared 300 hampers today and most of them were already given to those in need.”
Ali said the distribution began at 1.30 pm and by shortly after 2 pm most of the hampers had been distributed.
Those who collected the hampers were asked to form a line at the gate to the car park, where they were allowed in five at a time. Apart from the hampers they received a takeaway meal from KFC.
