By Shefa Rafi
It’s going to be a totally different experience for Muslims this year during the holy month of Ramadan as nation wide lockdown has put a spoke on their daily routine of five times namaz as mosques are shut till May 3. Adding insult to injury, night long Taraweeh prayers besides preparing Nonbu Kanji (Rice portridge) at the mosques have also been banned this time.
Really, a testing time for Muslims as they need to observe fasting with patience and tolerance while taking things in a positive way without showing any resentment whatsoever. After a meeting with Muslim outfits at the Tamil Nadu secretariat regarding raw rice disbursement of 5450 metric tonnes to 2895 odd mosques across the state for preparing Kanji, the Chief Secretary K Shanmugham said that since Section 144 is in force and nation wide lockdown has been announced, the raw rice may be received in bulk by the respective mosques and later distributed to needy families at their homes. Following which, the Chief Secretary made it clear that preparing Nonbu Kanji is banned at mosques. Meanwhile, the Chief Kazi to Tamil Nadu government advised for performing Taraweeh prayers at their respective homes.
Coimbatore in particular is second in the Corona list with around 126 positive cases and many areas like Podanur, Sundarapuram, RS puram, Kavundampalayam, Ukkadam, Poo Market, KK Pudur, Podanur railway colony, Kuniyamuthur and Gandhimanagar have been made containment zones restricting movement of people in these residential localities.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Wakf Board has also come out with a notification asking the jamath executive committees to strictly adhere to the ban imposed by the Central Wakf Board by not conducting any prayers including Taraweeh prayers and preparing Nonbu Kanji inside the mosque, dargarh, Imambara and Idgah premises. The notification sought the cooperation of Muslims in keeping indoors and maintaining social distancing at their homes to ward off COVID-19 spread.
In this backdrop, about 30 Muslims, who returned from Delhi congregation and admitted to Chennai Rajaji Government Medical College Hospital were discharged today after keeping them for nearly 25 days in isolation days. Of the total, 1130 persons returned from Delhi and screened at different government hospitals turned negative and major chunk of them have been discharged from the hospitals. This only proves to show that Muslims were targeted and the issue blown out of proportion by some newspapers and electronic channels by bringing disgrace to Muslims as a whole.
However, the Hadith clearly says “Allah created the cure for every illness”. And the almighty will bring solace and shifa from this dreaded disease Insha Allah.