Canada: Some Toronto-area mosques remaining open despite restrictions and warnings about coronavirus
MAR 28, 2020 11:00 AM BY
CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
“A group of Ontario imams and Islamic scholars is fighting an uphill battle to convince management at a handful of Toronto-area mosques to completely shutter their doors. They say that while a majority of mosques are closed….a few insist on remaining open. The imams believe the refusal to close the mosques exposes an allegiance to certain foreign scholars not heeding the calls.”
On a global scale, the battle continues within Islam on whether to heed the orders and warnings about the coronavirus and practice social distancing, or to listen to Islamic clerics who insist on continuing prayers amid the coronavirus outbreak, and die a martyr if that is Allah’s will.
Pakistan was reported to be the coronavirus super-spreader to the entire Muslim world, precisely because of the influence of determined Muslim clerics and an increasingly popular Islamic revival group called Tablighi Jamaat.
The Tableeghi Jamaat’s reluctance to cite an infectious virus as cause for the disbandment is rooted in its regressive ideology, whose exponents have ranged from militant jihadists to radical preachers to Islamic televangelists unleashing a perilous blend of unscientific fantasies and bigoted fallacies. For these ideologues, cancelling congregational prayers owing to an infectious disease is synonymous with repudiating Allah’s command.
But of course the risk of spreading coronavirus goes beyond the borders of Islamic countries and communities that are adherent to the words of clerics who tell them that Muslims are immune to the virus. Gaza’s first reported cases of coronavirus involved people who attended a Tablighi Ijtema (affiliated with Tablighi Jamaat) conference “alongside 250,000 Muslims in Pakistan last month that went ahead contrary to government advice.” Muslims also continue to gather for Friday prayers in India. In Canada, imams who have complied with social distancing “believe the refusal to close the mosques exposes an allegiance to certain foreign scholars not heeding the calls, and in the process endangering Canadian lives.”
It remains to be seen now what action Toronto authorities (and other Western cities who may be facing the same dilemma) will take in light of this threat to the health of all communities.
“Some Toronto-area mosques remain open despite dire warnings about COVID-19,” by Nazim Baksh, CBC News, March 25, 2020:
A group of Ontario imams and Islamic scholars is fighting an uphill battle to convince management at a handful of Toronto-area mosques to completely shutter their doors.
They say that while a majority of mosques are closed — some a whole week before Premier Doug Ford declared a province-wide state of emergency on March 17 — a few insist on remaining open.
The imams believe the refusal to close the mosques exposes an allegiance to certain foreign scholars not heeding the calls, and in the process endangering Canadian lives.
“We hate to see mosques shuttered, but our religion teaches us that we have an obligation to save lives and preserve people’s health,” said Zahir Bacchus, imam at Brampton’s Jamiat Al Ansar and a prominent member of the Canadian Council of Imams (CCI).
Bacchus said Al Ansar mosque decided to close its doors on March 13, two days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
‘Uncharted’ territory
“The COVID-19 pandemic has put Muslims in uncharted territory,” he said. “We’ve asked Muslims to pray at home, pray with their families and loved ones — just don’t come to the mosque,” he said….
They say that while a majority of mosques are closed — some a whole week before Premier Doug Ford declared a province-wide state of emergency on March 17 — a few insist on remaining open.
The imams believe the refusal to close the mosques exposes an allegiance to certain foreign scholars not heeding the calls, and in the process endangering Canadian lives…. |
