The coronavirus stopped communal Muslim prayers for the first time in living memory in many mosques from Indonesia to Morocco, but in some places believers have defied medical advice to join together in worship
JAKARTA/ISTANBUL/MOGADISHU - The coronavirus stopped communal Muslim prayers for the first time in living memory in many mosques from Indonesia to Morocco on Friday, but in some places believers have defied medical advice to join together in worship.
At Riyadh’s massive al-Rajhi mosque, only the imam, the muezzin who sings the call to prayer, and other staff were praying inside instead of the thousands who normally attend. But in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, mosques were crowded as a cleric told his congregation via loudspeaker: “We are not too weak to let this one virus empty our mosques.”“I am not telling you to reject the preventative measures, but there is too much exaggeration of coronavirus,” Sheikh Abdi Hayi in Mogadishu said in his sermon, as people prayed on the street, unable to join the throng within.
A religious gathering in Malaysia last month, attended by 16,000 people, generated 670 coronavirus cases in four countries in southeast Asia. Weekly prayers were later called off in Malaysia Outside the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul, named for the 15th century Ottoman sultan who captured the city from the Byzantine empire, 85-year-old Mustafa Emin Ozbakan stood bereft.
Some mosques broadcast an altered version of the call to prayer, exhorting the faithful to stay at home.
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