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Friday, February 28, 2025

Muslims prepare for Eid among lockdown

by

1396 days ago
20210504
Ashmead Ali and Nadeira Khan break fast with their children.

Ashmead Ali and Nadeira Khan break fast with their children.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

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.

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


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