PHILADELPHIA — Like Passover and Easter, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will be fundamentally affected by the coronavirus, as the devout will be forced to accept shuttered mosques, virtual sermons from socially distanced imams and canceled communal feasts during this pandemic spring.
But when the holiday began Thursday, one rigorous aspect of the faith remains intact: fasting for 30 straight days, from dawn till sundown.
“That makes it a monthlong marathon for Muslims,” said Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, education and outreach director for the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR. “It’s a challenging time of year, but one of the most rewarding.”
Tekelioglu hastened to add that, this year, all of the faithful are wondering what the holiday will look like. “Community members are concerned,” he said. “I know it will be drastically different.”
By CAIR estimates, 200,000 Muslims live in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. New Jersey is home to between 300,000 and 500,000 Muslims, according to Selaedin Maksut, the state’s executive director of CAIR.
They join the 3.5 million Muslims throughout America, and the 1.8 billion worldwide, who mark the occasion when God revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad about 1,400 years ago. The month is for prayer and spiritual reflection, as followers do good deeds and spend time with family and friends.
At the end of 30 days is a three-day holiday, Eid, mostly celebrated on its first day. With the object of the holiday “being you have to see people, visit graveyards of relatives, have lunches and dinner and coffee with as many family and friends as possible,” Eid will feel severely scaled back this year, Maksut said.
Perhaps the greatest deprivation will be the inability to have nightly meals at mosques and pray there during the 30 days of Ramadan.
In the wake of the pandemic, Muslim scholars are debating what form various aspects of Ramadan may take, Tekelioglu said. Some say, for example, that nightly prayers can be offered online. Others disagree, citing differences in interpretation, but say sermons by imams are permissible, he explained.
Most mosques will be closed — but not all.
At United Muslim Masjid, a mosque in Philadelphia, Qasim Rashad, the amir, or leader, who oversees the religious community there, said he plans to have 10 to 20 people in the mosque for nightly prayers during Ramadan.
“We want to maintain a connection to our community and our faith,” he said. “We’ll have a limited number here, and we’ll check people’s temperatures and we’ll sanitize all touch points.”
