ZUBAIR QURESHI
Giving an overwhelming response to the government’s call and acting on the religious scholars’ advice, majority of the residents of the Federal Capital on Friday preferred to remain indoors and offered Zohr prayers instead of Jumma at their respective places. This was done to prevent spread of coronavirus in the city. Even at mosques or private place where Friday prayers were organized, strict distance was maintained and the sermon was restricted to Urdu speeches and the strength not more than five. A joint Ulema panel after meeting with President Arif Alvi at the Aiwan-eSadr a day earlier (Thursday) had asked the Ummah to avoid religious congregations including Friday prayers. On their call, people on Friday kept indoors and those few who had ventured to come out of their houses to offer prayers in mosques were sent back by the police and rangers deployed at various points of the federal capital. Uninterrupted rain also played key role in keeping the residents at their homes and the administration and the health authorities heaved a sigh of relief as earlier, they feared large number could come out of their houses to partake in the Friday prayers. Islamabad’s iconic, rather Pakistan’s biggest mosque Faisal Masjid also saw a few persons who had come to offer Friday prayers there. Only seven to eight persons were there and mostly, the mosque’s internal staff that offered Friday prayer which was led by Maulana Zia-urRehman. They too made sure distance between the two was minimum of two feet in accordance with the government guidelines and to keep them safe from the virus. The Imam also delivered a brief address in Urdu language and after that gave a sermon in Arabic and stood up for the prayers. The Urdu speech primarily focused on elaborating preventive measures to save people from the coronavirus. In other congregational prayers too, social distancing and strength of the faithful who had come to offer prayers were duly observed in view of the precautionary measures due to novel coronavirus. Aftab Khan a resident of the Sector G-10/4 while talking to Pakistan Observer said he offered prayers at home as he did last Friday. Another resident of F11 sector Khalid Qureshi said “Like the previous Jumma prayer, I offered Zohar at home as our Prophet (PBUH) had allowed people to pray at their homes in case of rain or cold weather and even sickness.” The residents also paid tributes to the President Arif Alvi for taking a bold initiative on a sensitive matter and convinced the Ulema hailing from various schools of thought to agree to suspension of the Jumma prayers at the mosques. “If it was not for President Arif Alvi, there were seldom chance of such a rare agreement in our religious leaders,” said Zakia a house woman who was concerned for her children and husband in case they visited mosque and participated in the Jumma prayers
