Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Mus­lim cler­ic Sheik Mu­naf Mo­hammed says there is a break­down of fam­i­ly life in T&T.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ary Guild and the Ca­roni Ja­maat cel­e­bra­tion Eid-ul-Fitr at the Is­lam­ic Cen­tre at Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, yes­ter­day, Imam Mo­hammed said, “We have a fam­i­ly break­down in our com­mu­ni­ty and we are liv­ing in a God­less so­ci­ety, hence the rea­son we are hav­ing so many crimes in T&T; and par­ents need to do their jobs, they need to give their chil­dren the right up­bring­ing.”

Imam Mo­hammed al­so called on Mus­lims to pray for their broth­ers and sis­ters suf­fer­ing in Pales­tine. He said while the month of Ra­madan may have passed with ease for many Mus­lims in T&T, Mus­lims in Pales­tine had to suf­fer ter­ri­ble hard­ships at the hand of the Is­raelis.

He said many spent the pe­ri­od suf­fer­ing for ba­sic ameni­ties such as food and wa­ter while hid­ing from bombs in tents and un­der rub­ble away from their fam­i­lies “We sur­round­ed our ta­ble with all the beau­ti­ful foods and we had choic­es on what to eat and what not to eat... What about them (Pales­tini­ans), they had to eat crumbs, you know what is crumbs, bread­crumbs and any­thing they could get be­cause they have been de­nied. These dev­ils, the Zion­ists, pre­vent­ed food, wa­ter, ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties, elec­tric­i­ty and all those things cut from them.”

Mo­ham­mmed, who is al­so pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild, said around $3 mil­lion had been raised to as­sist the Mus­lims in war-torn Pales­tine. He said part of the funds have been sent to the Is­lam­ic Re­lief Or­gan­i­sa­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom.

“We con­tin­ue this col­lec­tion and no def­i­nite date of cut­ting it off has been an­nounced, we will con­tin­ue as the war con­tin­ues and the needs of the peo­ple con­tin­ue.”

He called on Mus­lims to be grate­ful for what they have and not­ed that pover­ty and wealth were tests from God as to how in­di­vid­u­als could han­dle liv­ing un­der such sit­u­a­tions. He said the les­son of si­lence should be car­ried for one’s life­time in a bid to avoid us­ing the tongue to slan­der or of­fend oth­ers.

Imam Mo­hammed called on all Mus­lims to pray and read the Quran as much as they can.

He said some Mus­lims chose to cel­e­brate yes­ter­day based on in­ter­na­tion­al sight­ings of the moon and oth­er groups will do so to­day based on lo­cal and re­gion­al sight­ings.

Mean­while, Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild pres­i­dent

Im­ti­az Mo­hammed ex­plained why his or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brat­ed Eid yes­ter­day.

Mo­hammed said, “This moon sight­ing is­sue would re­main a de­bat­able sub­ject with the ummah year af­ter year.

When we start­ed fast­ing on Sat­ur­day 1st March 2025, the moon was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 21 hours old and the ma­jor­i­ty of Ja­maahs in Trinidad didn’t ac­cept the in­ter­na­tion­al sight­ing, even though they knew the moon can be sight­ed with that amount of hours. So, their pol­i­cy is lo­cal or re­gion­al sight­ings and noth­ing is wrong if they choose to do so. The Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and the Ca­roni Ja­maah, like oth­er ja­maahs in T&T, have de­cid­ed to go on in­ter­na­tion­al sight­ing, like many oth­er Ja­maahs and or­gan­i­sa­tions in the world. We have adopt­ed this pol­i­cy many years ago.”

He added, “I haven’t heard any Shaykhs, Muftis or Maulanas or oth­er sim­i­lar learned Mus­lims bold­ly say which de­ci­sion on this mat­ter is 100 per cent right or wrong. So it is up to all or­gan­i­sa­tions, lead­ers and Ja­maahs to de­cide which way they would like to go.

And this should be re­spect­ed. This is a how a Mus­lim should be­have rather than post­ing ig­no­rant com­ments and false­ly ac­cus­ing those who choose to cel­e­brate Eid to­day (yes­ter­day).”