SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), Imam Ahamad Ho­sein, has called on the Gov­ern­ment to de­clare Eid-ul-Ad­ha a na­tion­al hol­i­day for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

Ho­sein made the call on Sun­day in the pres­ence of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, her hus­band Ker­wyn Gar­cia, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary of Turkey Ben­gu Yig­it­gu­den, High Com­mis­sion­er of Cana­da Arif Ke­shani and guests at the AS­JA Fes­ti­val of Ei­ds cel­e­bra­tions.

Bring­ing greet­ings at the AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege in Char­lieville, Ho­sein told the hun­dreds who at­tend­ed the event, “If her Ex­cel­len­cy wish­es to re­turn a gift to the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion and the Mus­lims of the coun­try, our on­ly de­sire at this time is to have Eid-ul-Ad­ha to be de­clared a na­tion­al hol­i­day.”

There was a loud round of ap­plause from those present.

He said the oc­ca­sion of Eid-ul-Ad­ha co­in­cides with the Ha­jj pil­grim­age which is the fifth pil­lar of Is­lam and scores of T&T Mus­lims would per­form the Ha­jj pil­grim­age every year.

“Some are present­ly in the Holy Land.”

Eid-ul-Ad­ha means the fes­ti­val of sac­ri­fice.

Eid-ul-Fitr, which is a na­tion­al hol­i­day in T&T, marks the end of Ra­madan and fast­ing.

Ho­sein said in this time of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, “We must ap­pre­ci­ate that Mus­lims are of every race, every colour, and na­tion­al­i­ty.”

He ap­pealed to cit­i­zens not to hate one an­oth­er.

He said, “Do not hate one an­oth­er or call each oth­er by of­fen­sive nick­names. This will sure­ly cause us to have a peace­ful so­ci­ety.”

Mufti As­rarul Haque, spir­i­tu­al guide of AS­JA, who al­so at­tend­ed the func­tion and de­liv­ered an Eid mes­sage, al­so en­dorsed Ho­sein’s call for an­oth­er na­tion­al hol­i­day for Mus­lims.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the event, Haque said for many years he has been ad­vo­cat­ing that Is­lam has two fes­ti­vals.

He said, “We re­quest, if pos­si­ble, the lead­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go—the Prime Min­is­ter and Pres­i­dent, if they grant us one day more as a pub­lic hol­i­day, we will ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

He sought to ex­plain by not hav­ing a hol­i­day on Eid-ul-Ad­ha that “their chil­dren are not able to come to of­fer prayer on that day. So we miss our fun­da­men­tal rights as Mus­lims.”

Haque said he had asked for Eid-ul-Ad­ha to be de­clared a hol­i­day a few years ago but was told that T&T has too many pub­lic hol­i­days “so they can’t give more… if they have to give (the Mus­lims) they would have to give the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty as well.”

Go­ing for­ward, Haque said, he would write to the coun­try’s lead­ers again to put for­ward their case once more.

“We have sent some let­ters. We have been re­quest­ing this for many years. But sure­ly we are go­ing to ap­peal to the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er it,” Haque said.