Coronavirus: Saudi's top religious body urges Muslims to pray at home during Ramadan

RIYADH • Saudi Arabia's highest religious body, the Council of Senior Scholars, urged Muslims worldwide to pray at home during Ramadan if their countries require social distancing to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the official Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.

The holy fasting month of Ramadan begins later this week.

During the month, believers usually break their fast with families and friends and perform an evening prayer, known as Tarawih, in large gatherings at mosques.

"Muslims shall avoid gatherings because they are the main cause of the spread of infection... and shall remember that preserving the lives of people is a great act that brings them closer to God," the council said in a statement.

The kingdom's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh last Friday expressed the same sentiment, saying that Muslim prayers during Ramadan and for the subsequent Aidilfitri feast should be performed at home if the coronavirus outbreak continues.

Saudi Arabia has reported more than 9,300 cases of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, and 97 deaths so far, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states where the total has reached 24,374 with 156 deaths.

The Saudi government last month stopped people performing their five daily prayers and the weekly Friday prayer inside mosques as part of efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said last Saturday he hopes US Muslims will be held to the same social distancing standards during Ramadan as Christians at Easter.

Mr Trump made the comments after being asked to defend a retweet of a conservative commentator who seemed to question whether Muslims would be treated with the same severity as Christians who broke social distancing rules.

"I would say that there could be a difference," Mr Trump said during his daily coronavirus press conference. "And we'll have to see what will happen. Because I've seen a great disparity in this country."

"They go after Christian churches but they don't tend to go after mosques," he said.

Ramadan, which begins at sunset on Thursday, falls a week and a half after Easter, when some Christians bucked public health regulations to attend illicit services.

Asked whether he thought imams would refuse to follow social distancing orders, Mr Trump responded: "No, I don't think that at all.

"I am somebody that believes in faith. And it matters not what your faith is. But our politicians seem to treat different faiths very differently."

Mr Trump has been accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the past and one of his first acts upon entering office was to ban travellers from several Muslim-majority countries.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE