Eid al-Adha Amidst a Pandemic
Item
PGV_ID
300277
Title
Eid al-Adha Amidst a Pandemic
Media file format such as pdf, mp3, mp4, docx
jpg
Author (individual or group)
Salam Mawas
Location
8092 Plantation Dr, West Chester Township, OH 45069
Religious movement
Sunni Islam
Description or narrative
When I was younger, I would wake up to the holiday of Eid al-adha to presents, a lavish breakfast, and getting all dolled up to head down to the mosque for the special Eid prayer to then spend the rest of the day with friends and family. Unfortunately, this important holiday was spent six feet apart and wrapped up in masks.
The day before Eid, my dad sat all of us down and told my family how this year would work, considering the mosque was able to open back up with certain regulations regarding the pandemic. At first I was so excited to hear that we were allowed back there, until he began telling us that we have to keep our masks on the entire time, you won’t be allowed to stick around and socialize afterwards, and we have to remain a certain distance apart from each other at all times. I started to reminisce on the thousands of people of all different backgrounds that would always come to Eid prayer, if anything else. I took for granted how significant this day is for Muslims once it actually came, and none of us could celebrate it the way it should be celebrated.
Once I got there, we immediately had someone come up to us to take our temperature, make sure we were sanitized, and gave us each masks if need be. He guided us into the mosque, and to my astonishment, the beautiful place of worship I’ve known since I was a kid was all marked up with placeholders that were each six feet apart to tell us where we were able to sit. We got in, completed our traditional prayer, and left. The energy was not how it usually was in there. The minute I come inside the mosque, there are always people greeting me and waving, and the whole room is buzzing with laughter and smiling faces, but this year everyone's countenance was masked.
Our Imam told us to never lose hope, and that we will all be able to look back at this and remind ourselves how far we have come together. The pandemic has truly caused the Muslim community to become more and more grateful for everything they have, because it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.
The day before Eid, my dad sat all of us down and told my family how this year would work, considering the mosque was able to open back up with certain regulations regarding the pandemic. At first I was so excited to hear that we were allowed back there, until he began telling us that we have to keep our masks on the entire time, you won’t be allowed to stick around and socialize afterwards, and we have to remain a certain distance apart from each other at all times. I started to reminisce on the thousands of people of all different backgrounds that would always come to Eid prayer, if anything else. I took for granted how significant this day is for Muslims once it actually came, and none of us could celebrate it the way it should be celebrated.
Once I got there, we immediately had someone come up to us to take our temperature, make sure we were sanitized, and gave us each masks if need be. He guided us into the mosque, and to my astonishment, the beautiful place of worship I’ve known since I was a kid was all marked up with placeholders that were each six feet apart to tell us where we were able to sit. We got in, completed our traditional prayer, and left. The energy was not how it usually was in there. The minute I come inside the mosque, there are always people greeting me and waving, and the whole room is buzzing with laughter and smiling faces, but this year everyone's countenance was masked.
Our Imam told us to never lose hope, and that we will all be able to look back at this and remind ourselves how far we have come together. The pandemic has truly caused the Muslim community to become more and more grateful for everything they have, because it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.
Contributor
mawass@miamioh.edu
Religious organization, or house of worship
Islam
Genre
Personal story, social media or blog post, unpublished material, etc.
Date
9/15/20
This item was submitted on September 16, 2020 by Salam Mawas using the form “Help gather religious responses to the pandemic” on the site “Preaching Goes Viral”: https://preachinggoesviral.org/s/preaching-goes-viral
Click here to view the collected data.