“If you can’t go to the mosque, bring the mosque to your home. “
This is the suggestion made by a local imam in Tennessee to Sally Hamdan and her family ahead of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
“Our imam, which is the leader of the mosque, has put it in a beautiful way. He said, ‘Let’s make our homes mosques this year.’ So instead of us going to the mosque, the mosque is coming to us,” Hamdan told The Tennessean.
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In any normal year, Ramadan is a time of communal prayer, of daytime fasting, night-time feasting, extensive socializing and acts of profound generosity and charity.
Preparations for Ramadan are underway, just like in the previous years. However this year feels very different.
For the first time ever, Sally Hamdan’s husband, Dr. Ashraf Hamdan, and their sons, Saif and Tamim Hamdan, will alternate leading the prayers at home for their own family of five.
“This is something new that we’ve never done before,” Sally Hamdan said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
Virtual Iftar
Ramadan is the 9th month of the Hijri Islamic calendar. It commemorates the first revelation of the Qur’an to Prophet Muhammad.
From dawn until sunset, Muslims refrain from food, drinking liquids, smoking, and engaging in sexual relations).
With mosques shut across the US, families keeping social distancing would not meet in large iftar gatherings or taraweeh prayer.
Hamdan hopes they will still be able to share a meal virtually with their friends.
“Maybe we send them food or they will have their own food and I will send them the recipe and they’ll cook it,” Hamdan said.
“We’ll turn our cameras on and we’ll FaceTime and then we’ll be together.”
The US currently has the highest rate of COVID-19 cases.
In the US, there are 819,175 COVID-19 cases. The virus has killed 45,343 so far in the country.