RAMADAN AMID A GLOBAL PANDEMIC

In the name of God (who is) the beneficent (and) the merciful

Peace be upon our Muhammad and his purified progeny

Today's the first day of Ramadan in the eastern countries such as India and Pakistan. While the Arab world fasted yesterday and some of our Muslim brothers imitated them because they believe a Muslim can observe fasts if moon is sighted in Hijaz, most Pakistanis are starting to perform intermittent fasting from today - April 25, 2020 CE. This is probably one of the rarest incidents when Ramadan is being celebrated amid a deadly global pandemic. The world is fasting during a worldwide COVID-19 emergency.

The government of Sindh province of Pakistan has banned religious congregations in mosques while other provinces (ruled by the party that runs the federal government) have allowed congregational prayers under strict conditions of social distancing. Sunni Muslims all over the world offer tarawih prayers in the nights of Ramadan. This prayer session includes the imam reciting Quran in its entirety during this seasonal prayer season. I really don't understand the complications involved because, being a Shiite Muslim, I have never offered tarawih prayers. But I do know that a daily session of these prayers involves usually 20 raka'ah. These prayers go back in our past when Caliph Umar, the second successor of Prophet Muhammad, initiated this blessed ritual. Sunni Muslims are very fond of these tarawih sessions so you can guess how uncomfortable were the masses when the government announced a provincial ban on it.

Ramadan also involves a Shiite event - the death anniversary of Caliph Ali. He was the fourth successor of Muhammad and Shiite Muslims consider him to be the best man on earth after the Prophet. He ruled for a little over five years and was struck down - just like Caliph Omar 17 years before him - by an ex-serviceman who had gotten disillusioned with what he perceived to be anti-Islamic activities of the esteemed Caliph. This murderer - a certain Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljim - belonged to a religious community called the Kharijites. These were some of the early terrorists in Islam. Every year, Shiite Muslims all over the world - and specially in Pakistan - organize processions and mournful rallies to remember the death of Ali. Let's see whether they're allowed to repeat their annual mourning rituals in 2020 CE or not.

After Ramadan, we will reach the gay occasion of Id al-Fitr in which Muslims come together to celebrate a successful conclusion to Ramadan. As coronavirus cases in Pakistan are supposed to hit a massive 200,000 in the middle of June, I don't believe we would be able to enjoy the festivities of Id like ever before. May is supposed to be harder than April. WHO, NDMA, Sindh Health Ministry and our Foreign Minister have warned that May would bring a rise in COVID-19 cases. We are seeing that, every day, some 1,000 cases are reported in Pakistan. People are not following the doctors' pleas. There have been press conferences of doctors from Sindh, Punjab, KPK and Islamabad. They have requested the people to stay home, distance themselves socially, avoid going to mosques and be isolated. But people on social media have ignored these humble and thoughtful applications with scorn. Nobody's listening. To get an idea of how monstrous SARS-CoV-2 is going to be in Pakistan, see this chart I have made.

I am not a big fan of those liberals who are advocating fiercely for closing down mosques. Though I myself believe that you should avoid going to mosques and make your house masjid. I also believe mosques aren't the source of this infection. Markets are the actual source. People are gathering in bazaars as if it were Chand Rat (the busy night before Id people spend shopping in malls). Offices are open, industries are allowed to work and there is no effective lockdown. The kind of lockdown we have seen from March is just a lenient and political version of a sit-at-home campaign. Our PM doesn't want economy to take a bad hit due to an actual lockdown so he won't let the provinces announce anything strict. However, CM Sindh doesn't really care about the economy as his party is very corrupt and they don't want the federal government to succeed. Hence, Sindh is being very forward about making people stay home. However, we can't have an effective lockdown with people roaming the streets freely. We need to have the kind of lockdown Italy and Spain declared. Only then we can think about survival from this pandemic.

As the clock is ticking and the time for my first aftari is getting closer, more patients of coronavirus are being detected by doctors. Some 12,000 people have caught this disease in Pakistan (from February 26). Many vaccines have been prepared by some countries but they are only in trial phases. Trump, once again, has proposed something stupid (this time, he wants people to inject disinfectants in their blood). I am writing this blog with a heavy heart because I know we're exponentially drawing near a pseudo-apocalypse.

God bless us all!