Plans for smaller, joyous Eid
Muslim community to celebrate breaking of fast with COVID limits
Last year, Asra Batool, a gastroenterologist at Albany Medical Center Hospital, had a very different Ramadan. After her Suhoor or pre-dawn meal, she donned PPE, and went about her day, caring for people through a pandemic, without consuming so much as a drop of water until sunset.
She’d go home to break her fast, and what was usually a joyous communal event was reduced to a socially distanced dish left on the doorstep of her home in Latham.
This year is different. Muslims across the Capital Region are hoping to restore the holiday to what it was.
“I would say about 50 to 60 percent. Although not 100 percent,” said Batool. “This year, the prayers have been resumed with COVID precautions, where everyone has to bring their own prayer mat. They all have to wear face masks. And they have to stand six feet apart with social distancing.”
Haroon Sarwer, president of the board of directors at Masjid As-salam said that it was difficult to be there for their community over the past year. According to Sarwer, the mosque has a very diverse congregation, many of whom are not from the most privileged backgrounds and did not always have access to online meeting platforms like Zoom. This year has brought some relief to the community.
“The biggest change that peo
ple missed was Iftar,” said Sarwer. “We used to have 300-400 people every single day. Many of them were just part of the community who would come to the mosque and break the fast. Everybody was looking forward to the month of Ramadan so they could get together, have meals together and all that. Because of COVID, none of that happened.”
Sarwer said that praying together had always been a source of comfort for their congregation. And this year will still be difficult as children cannot pray at the mosque and having little ones run around them was always a source of joy for the community.
But what got them through last year and has done so again, was their faith.
“People were a little scared under the previous (presidential) administration,” said Sarwer. “I guess that what also helped me, was sticking to my faith and making sure that they get representation somehow.”
Jad Moumen, president of the Muslim Students’ Association at Albany Medical College, found that while last Ramadan was a lot quieter, he could spend more time praying and reading the Quran.
“I found that the isolation, it gave me more time to focus on myself spiritually,” said Moumen. “Ramadan is a very social time, people get together all the time. So since we weren't spending time doing that, I was able to focus on myself more, I had more time to pray . ... So that's not just me, I talked to a lot of people who said that they felt like, last year, Oh, my God, while it was, you know, isolated, it was a very special Ramadan as well.”
For Aliya Saeed, a psychiatrist based in Niskayuna, last Ramadan brought a different kind of epiphany. As Saeed fasted and prayed in her home, she also realized that coming back together as a society after so much time apart would take its toll. This Ramadan, Saeed acted on her epiphany and is running for the Board of Education president in Niskayuna.
“I really feel that there are new challenges that this year brings that may not have been there in the past,” she said. “And I think it's very important that our institutions, including our schools, are aware of how we can focus on the well-being of our student community. So that is one of the ... big reasons why this year was the year that I decided to step up and run for the school board.”
Saeed spent this Ramadan campaigning from door to door, trying her best to bring about the change she wanted. While she campaigned, Saeed made sure to remember to donate.
Charity or Zakat, is one of the five pillars of Islam and is especially important during Ramadan. For most, this was reduced to an online donation last year, but many, like Moumen didn’t think it was so bad.
“On the contrary, because usually there are a lot of people that go out and spend a lot of money on big dinners, so some people that were fortunate had money saved from not going out to eat, so they actually have more money to donate,” said Moumen.
This year, the local community plans to have as good an Eid as they can. According to Sarwer, it was custom for all the mosques in the Capital Region to have one big celebration. This year’s socially distant ceremony will be a lot smaller.
“We hug each other ... for Eid. We can’t do that this year,” he said.
But for people like Batool, to not have to fast through the day in PPE and to celebrate Eid with her family, it will still be a lot.