It is the sec­ond year that Mus­lims will be cel­e­brat­ing Eid dur­ing a pan­dem­ic but even though COVID-19 re­stric­tions have pre­vent­ed com­mu­nal gath­er­ings, Mus­lims say their fam­i­ly bonds are stronger than ever.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ash­mead Ali and Nadeira Khan, the di­rec­tors of the ASH-NAD Foun­da­tion, said they were grate­ful to spend every night break­ing fast to­geth­er. 

“Usu­al­ly, I would be at the mosque and Nadeira will be home with the chil­dren. Dur­ing the month of Ra­madan, we like to make a dua to thank Al­lah for his favours to keep the fast. We make col­lec­tive dua and ask for Al­lah’s bless­ings and that he ac­cepts our good deeds and fast. We make dua and break the fast. Then we make the sun­set prayer,” Ash­mead ex­plained.

Be­fore the COVID-19 re­stric­tions, Ali said the break­ing of the fast would have tak­en place in the masjid where mem­bers of the Ja­maat would as­sem­ble.

Ali said while they missed see­ing their broth­ers and sis­ters of the faith, Mus­lim fam­i­lies now have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bond clos­er as a fam­i­ly. 

“Break­ing our fast to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly has cre­at­ed more close­ness with­in the fam­i­ly cir­cle. We are pray­ing col­lec­tive­ly every night. A fam­i­ly that prays to­geth­er, stays to­geth­er and this is some­thing that we were see­ing hap­pen­ing dur­ing this month,” Ali said.

His wife Nadeira said COVID-19 was a warn­ing to hu­man­i­ty to turn away from do­ing wicked deeds.

Ashmead Ali and Nadeira Khan.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

“I be­lieve it is a sig­nal from the Almighty telling us we are not in­vin­ci­ble and that we need to take pre­cau­tions and be mind­ful of our lives and our lifestyles,” Khan said. 

She added, “For me, (COVID-19) has brought me clos­er to Him (Al­lah). I am pray­ing a lot more, thank­ing him a lot more. I am read­ing the Quran a lot more than I have ever done in my en­tire life and he is send­ing a mes­sage to hu­man­i­ty that they need to get their act to­geth­er and put their house in or­der.”

Both Khan and Ali said their char­i­ta­ble works have not been im­ped­ed by COVID-19.

Un­der Is­lam­ic teach­ings, a Mus­lim is ho­n­our-bound to con­tribute two and a half per cent of his earn­ings to as­sist needy fam­i­lies. Through the ASH-NAD Foun­da­tion, con­tri­bu­tions have been col­lect­ed and over 300 ham­pers have been pre­pared to as­sist poor Mus­lim fam­i­lies. 

Last week, the project co­or­di­na­tor of the Foun­da­tion Zan­im Mo­hammed said be­cause of the re­stric­tions, Mus­lims did not go out in­to com­mu­ni­ties dis­trib­ut­ing ham­pers. In­stead, the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous Ja­maats pro­vid­ed a list of names to the foun­da­tion and once ham­pers were pre­pared, they were de­liv­ered to the var­i­ous mosques for dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Mo­hammed said un­like pre­vi­ous years, there were no dis­tri­b­u­tions among the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion. He said Mus­lims had to take every pre­cau­tion to en­sure that all COVID-19 pro­to­cols were be­ing ob­served.

Last week, the pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer at AS­JA Imam Raf­fa­ic Mo­hammed an­nounced that all masjids will re­main closed, all Imams will re­main in seclu­sion and all Mus­lim fam­i­lies will cel­e­brate Eid with­in their in­ti­mate fam­i­ly cir­cle.

—Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va