Title: COVID-19 and Religious Obligations
In the early months of the year 2020, the world entered a state of global emergency
when a new pandemic seeped into the community worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic
brought the world to a halt in many sectors such as the economy, education, tourism and many
others. The most impacted sector in my opinion would be the economic sector as businesses
started to plummet, import and export activities were slowed down, people started to lose jobs
and stock markets started to suffer as businesses close down. Not only that, the healthcare
industry has had a huge impact since as days go by, more and more people got infected with
the coronavirus and needed to be treated. Thousands of cases rose up in Malaysia and millions
worldwide with death tolls also rising. Governments were pushed into making critical decisions
to help save their own countries from succumbing to this deadly virus.
Before I proceed, I want to applaud the Malaysian government especially the Ministry
of Health for tirelessly coming up with ways and SOPs to combat the virus. Educational
institutions were closed down, businesses are given strict SOP to operate and the society are
given careful instructions on how to protect themselves from getting infected. Through all these
efforts made by the Ministry of Health and National Security Council, the number of cases and
death tolls has been successfully reduced day after day.
As for us Muslims, one of the most affected things this pandemic has brought to us is
the closure of religious institutions such as mosques. This also meant our usual Jumaat prayer
activity that is obligatory for all Muslim males are also being put to a stop until the virus is
cured and number of cases drop to a safe level for social activities to resume. All congregational
prayer activities in mosques and musollas are also prohibited during this pandemic. This is duly
noted by al people in the community. But the question that is being asked now is that, why are
religious activities in mosques and musollas are still being prohibited when other social
activities have been allowed such as going to malls, supermarkets, and playing some sports?
People have been talking about the minister of religion is not doing the right thing but I
disagree.
In my opinion, the reason why religious activities at mosques and musollas are still
being prohibited and controlled strictly while other social activities are less strict is because we
want to avoid people talking badly about Islam in the future. If we don’t prohibit or strictly
control the activity of Jumaat prayer and congregational prayer, people will gather in big
amounts, social distancing will not be practiced, and the risk for the virus to spread will be
high. So, when cases start to rise again, people will start to blame the Muslim community for
allowing gathering in large groups. Fitnah can happen within the Muslim community and
people will not look at Islam as a good religion when it comes to handling a crisis such as the
COVID-19 pandemic.
However, now that religious activities are being allowed again with strict SOPs, I found
out that not many people are attending Jumaat prayer and congregational prayers at mosques
and musollas. I think this is because people have been so used to staying at home that they
developed laziness to perform their daily prayers. This is the bad effect of the pandemic towards
us as a Muslim community. We have been so used to staying at home that we refuse to go out
of our homes even when it is obligatory upon us.
Hence, the conclusion that I can draw here is that, we need to reflect on ourselves again
after this long battle with the pandemic. Yes, we are still fighting with the virus, and we are
aware that we need to follow SOPs provided by the government, but that doesn’t mean that we
can neglect the obligations of our religion upon us. May Allah protect us always.
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