Top Saudi religious body urges Muslims to pray at home for Ramzan

Muslims are asked to pray at home and avoid all gatherings

Muslims-praying-karachi-ramzan-social-distancing-covid19-AP Karachi: People attend evening prayers while maintaining a level of social distancing to help avoid the spread of the coronavirus, at a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, April 19, 2020 | AP

Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body has urged Muslims across the world to pray at home during the holy month of Ramzan in order to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, particularly in countries that have imposed restrictions on movement and that have called for social distancing.

Ramzan, which is expected to begin on April 23, is observed by Muslims worldwide and is marked by daily fasting for a period of one month. Fasts are usually broken in social gatherings of friends or family, sometimes in large iftar banquets.

The Council of Senior Scholars, according to the state news agency SPA, has asked Muslims to pray at home and avoid all gatherings.

In a statement, the CSC said, “Muslims should set an example by performing their religious duties while adhering to the preventive and precautionary measures issued by relevant authorities in the countries they live in.”

Saudi Arabia has over 8,000 cases of COVID-19 and 92 deaths, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states. In March, the government had stopped people from performing the five daily prayers and the weekly Friday prayers inside mosques, while Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh said that evening prayers during Ramzan should be performed at home if they cannot be performed in mosques due to preventative measures taken to fight the spread of coronavirus, Okaz reported.

The move comes as several countries across the world prepare for Ramzan amid fears that religious gatherings could lead to new clusters of COVID-19 cases. In the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh—the country’s most populous state—Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that the state’s public distribution system would be ‘universalised’ so that there would be no insufficiency in the availability of essential items for Muslims. In Pakistan, conditional congregational prayers are to be allowed during Ramzan, with government guidelines on social distancing to be followed in mosques.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump attracted controversy after commenting that he hoped Muslims would be held to the same standards on social distancing norms during Ramzan as Christians were during Easter. “They go after Christian churches but they don’t tend to go after mosques,” he said on Sunday, referring to criticism of Christians defying social distancing to gather during Easter weekend.

As of Sunday, there have been over 2.3 million cases of COVID-19 across the world and over 164,000 deaths. Over 600,000 people have recovered from the virus so far.