Before preparing this report, we paused a lot about the choices of stakeholders in the country about the possibility of allowing people to perform Tarawih prayers with the advent of the blessed month of Ramadan. Ramadan without Tarawih is like a body without a soul in the eyes of many Qatari society (citizens and residents). Indeed, Tarawih prayer is the essence of the fun Ramadan for Muslims around the world for hundreds of years.
However, despite the importance of Tarawih prayers, the Council of Ministers announced a week before Ramadan that mosques would continue to be opened to perform the daily duties and Friday prayers, provided that Tarawih prayers would be performed during the blessed month in homes, and children under 12 years old would not be allowed to enter, while adhering to the precautionary measures that it determined. The Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, while continuing to close toilets and ablution facilities.
* Invitations to perform Tarawih prayers *
With the beginning of the month of Ramadan or a few hours earlier, social media platforms chanted the necessity to allow Tarawih prayers to be held in Qatar, even if in a reduced manner as some neighboring countries did. These calls are accompanied by an aspect of irony when comparing the ban on Tarawih prayers with some of the gatherings that appear in videos exchanged by activists. The Internet without taking deterrent measures against these gatherings.
Tweeters and followers see that Tarawih prayers in mosques will not be offered and will not increase cases of infection with Corona virus in society, and they see that the benefits of holding it outweigh the sales that may result from it .. Is it true that Tarawih prayer will not increase the number of infections and deaths?
The numbers do not lie,
far from the language of the social media and the appeals in them about holding Tarawih prayers in the mosques, let’s talk in the language of numbers about the current health situation in Qatar as a result of the spread of the Corona virus.
Without going far, for the past 4 days only 36 deaths have been recorded in the country, meaning 36 families lost a loved one, and if the death numbers remain unchanged, we may witness hundreds of deaths per month, which is a terrifying and frightening number that reaches the stage of threatening the lives of all members of society.
As for the number of Coronavirus infections, the count does not stop and the indicator is increasing significantly until we reached during the past 5 days only to more than 4000 infections, some of them are serious cases that required entry to intensive care rooms, and intensive care rooms were already suffering from their scarcity, which necessitated the allocation and transfer of public hospitals. To care rooms.
With the logic of the argument, allowing Tarawih prayers, which hundreds of people flock to at this time, may cause more injuries and consequently more deaths in a very sensitive stage that the country’s health system is going through.
Lack of discipline in the mosques .. *
The Qatari community has seen through the local media, specifically the Al Sharq website, how the first Friday prayers took place in the month of Ramadan, and despite the commitment of worshipers in some mosques to precautionary measures, there are many mosques that witnessed the absence of conditions for separation and leaving sufficient distance between the worshipers, and a complete absence of organizing procedures By congregants.
Comparing Friday prayers with Taraweeh prayers, the number of prayers in Taraweeh is greater, i.e. its time, which will extend further, i.e. mixing for a longer period, meaning more injuries, and with what we witnessed during the first Ramadan Friday, recklessness and lack of commitment will lead to an unpleasant stage.
The elderly are the first victim
Not to mention that many of those who go to mosques are from the elderly group, which is the most threatened group of infection with the Coronavirus, which is the same group that has recorded the most deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
This report does not encourage the idea of not holding Tarawih prayers nor does it call for it … but with a simple analysis of the current situation, all the data indicates that any gathering will have dangerous consequences for those we love among our family, relatives and friends …
