COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Clerics have cautioned Muslims against performing the field Eid’l Fit’r prayers following the culmination of Ramadan to protect them from coronavirus disease.
The Islamic Ramadan fasting season, which started April 24, is expected to end within four or five days from now, depending on the sighting of the new moon to mark the start of Shawal, the 10th month in the lunar-based Hijrah calendar.
The Darul Iftah, or House of Opinions in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, reiterated Tuesday its previous appeal for BARMM residents to forego with the traditionally grand Eid’l Fit’r outdoor congregational prayers as a health protection measure.
Darul Iftah’s figurehead, Abu Huraira Udasan, who is also BARMM’s grand mufti (preacher), said Islam has extensive teachings on quarantine practices against contagious diseases.
There are Islamic history books that tell of stories about the suspension many times over of the yearly Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah in what is now Saudi Arabia, due to outbreaks of infectious diseases in Middle Eastern communities.
The Darul Iftah is comprised of top clerics in the Bangsamoro region, among them graduates of Islamic universities in the Middle East and North Africa like Udasan, who had studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azzar University in Cairo, Egypt.
Eid’l Fit’r festivities in southern Philippines are capped off with family gatherings, something banned meantime under anti-COVID-19 protocols.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of BARMM, said the Darul Iftah’s guidelines on Eid outdoor prayers and the regular worship rites in mosques have properly been disseminated to local government units in the region.
Sinarimbo on Tuesday asked the media, particularly the broadcast outfits in BARMM, to keep announcing Darul Iftah’s coronavirus prevention thrusts.
In BARMM’s island Basilan province, Gov. Jim Salliman also urged constituents to obey the decision of their Ulama Supreme Council and the Darul Iftah to suspend meantime all congregational worship rites in mosques and during the Eid’l Fit’r.
“Our religion encourages us to obey our religious leaders. We have a religion that has profound teachings on prevention of diseases through quarantine practices. We have to follow them to save lives,” Salliman said.
Salliman said members of Basilan’s council of Ulama (preachers) agreed during a meeting last May 16 to continue the temporary ban on congregational prayers in support of the provincial government’s war on COVID-19.