Tag: mosques

  • Allocation of spaces for women in mosques across Sindh

    The Sindh government has announced that it will allocate a place for women to pray in all mosques in the province.

    A meeting was held under the chairmanship of Provincial Minister of Law and Awqaf, Umar Soomro, in which he asserted that a separate place should be allocated for women in 77 mosques.

    He has asked that the process of data collection of registered and unregistered mosques and madrassas should be speeded up.

    He also said that the Awqaf Department should initiate a dialogue with religious affairs and all stakeholders, further suggesting that technical skill programs and IT courses should also be introduced in madrassas in consultation with religious scholars.

    As per the briefing, 8,903 madrassas have been registered across Sindh while registration of more mosques and madrassas is underway.

  • Saudi Arabia announces new rules for pilgrims in Makkah, Madina

    Saudi Arabia announces new rules for pilgrims in Makkah, Madina

    Saudi Arabia has announced new rules for pilgrims. Whether they are coming from inside the Kingdom or from other countries, pilgrims have been seen using mobiles during the call of prayer (Azan). Saudi Arabia has warned the public against playing or turning up the volume of music inside residential areas during Azan and Iqamah (the first and second calls to prayer, respectively), saying it is punishable by law.

    “Anyone who is caught playing ‘music’ of any kind during the call of prayer from mosques will now be fined SAR 1000 (Rs46,730) for a first-time violation and if violation repeats SAR 2000 (Rs93,461) will be charged,” announced the Twitter account of Haramain Sharifain.

    The Saudi Arabian government has also introduced a new fine ranging from SAR 250 to SAR 500 for anyone wearing shorts inside mosques or government offices.

    However, the government has clarified that men wearing shorts in public won’t be considered a violation of public decorum, except in mosques.

    Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah issued new guidelines for Umrah pilgrims. All pilgrims will have to get the status of their vaccination checked six hours before performing Umrah.

    It made negative PCR test reports compulsory for pilgrims. The test should be taken no more than 48 hours before arrival even if they are vaccinated.

    There were 19 violations on the list of public etiquette violations approved in 2019. With the new decision, the list of public etiquette violations now stands at 20.

  • ‘Riasat-e-Madina is one where you demolish Hindu temples’: JUI-F’s Secretary General Abdul Ghafoor

    ‘Riasat-e-Madina is one where you demolish Hindu temples’: JUI-F’s Secretary General Abdul Ghafoor

    Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam’s (JUI-F) secretary-general Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, during a press briefing, incited people to demolish Hindu temples.

    Ghafoor was explaining his interpretation of what Riasat-e-Madina looks like and said, “The main idea of Riasat-e-Madina is one where you demolish Hindu temples, destroy idols and build mosques.”

    “These people are making temples and idols,” said Ghafoor, adding, “When Babri Masjid was unlawfully desecrated, a lot of criticism was lamented on India. Protests took place against the attack. The ones who did this are kafir [non-believers].”

    “Today in Pakistan, one respected judge, whom I feel ashamed calling chief justice, he too should feel ashamed. On whose directives did he pass the order?” remarked Ghafoor.

    “For 40 years the court and chief justice were blind. Karachi is his city as well. He is an extremist,” added Ghafoor.

    “I would like to take names, the government minister Fawad Chaudhry when he won the election gave a statement that JUI-F is an extremist party. I [Ghafoor] want to put a mirror in front of him [Fawad], I want to tell him, his leadership and [prime minister] Imran Khan when you staged a dharna in Islamabad, you addressed the parliament from D-chowk and cursed the people sitting in the parliament, you cursed the parliament and army, and you didn’t stop here,” lamented the JUI-F leader.

    Ghafoor further criticising the government said, “Sheikh Rasheed who fits into every boot is the interior minister and this is such cruelty. We too came out from Karachi and held a march no one complained about us, their protest was a drama, we had a million people, and no one complained about us. My tehreek [movement] is in front of the country and so is their’s. My extremism and equality are in front of the people and your character is in front of the country as well.”

    “The country has to decide who is a terrorist the [government] or myself,” said Ghafoor.

  • Mosques to remain open in Ramzan; Pakistan’s daily COVID-19 cases at eight-month high

    Mosques to remain open in Ramzan; Pakistan’s daily COVID-19 cases at eight-month high

    Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (PM) on Religious Harmony Maulana Tahir Ashrafi has said that mosques across the country will remain open during the holy month of Ramzan amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Statement of the premier’s aide coincided with the country reporting highest daily rise in the number of coronavirus infections in eight months as 4,974 cases in 24 hours took the tally to 672,931.

    At least 98 deaths in a day took the total number of fatalities in the country to 14,530.

    “There is decree of religious scholars that people should get themselves vaccinated against COVID-19,” Ashrafi told reporters in Islamabad on Wednesday.

    He further said that scholars from various schools of thought have assured their full support to follow COVID-19 SOPs during prayers timings in Ramazan.

    There are currently 3,303 critical patients of COVID-19 admitted at different hospitals in the country.

    The country has so far conducted 1,02,47,374 coronavirus tests countrywide.

    The positivity ratio reported in the last 24 hours is 9.93%.

    While complete lockdown is time and again being ruled out by authorities, it merits a mention that last year’s months-long closure of all businesses had come while positivity ratio stood below 8%.

  • PM Imran to be tested for COVID-19

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan will undergo the test for the new coronavirus after Edhi Foundation Chairperson Faisal Edhi, who had met the premier last week, tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day.

    According to the PM’s focal person on coronavirus, Dr Faisal Sultan, the premier has been advised to get himself tested as a precautionary measure after Edhi tested positive days after meeting him to donate Rs10 million to the government’s virus relief fund.

    Edhi is in Islamabad at the moment and had insisted on being tested since he had been on the ground working with patients. His family will also undergo a test for the virus.

    Edhi had traveled to Lahore and then to Islamabad, where he had met the premier and donated a Rs10 million check on behalf of his organisation, Geo reported.

    According to his son Saad Edhi, everyone who had come in contact with him will be tested for the virus, while the social worker remains in isolation and constant contact with his doctor.

    Edhi says he had started experiencing severe headache and fever on April 16.

    Meanwhile, the host and crew of a TV show, where Edhi had made an appearance last week, has already taken the tests and advised to stay at home till results arrive.

    ‘PAKISTAN AN INDEPENDENT NATION, CAN’T STOP WORSHIPPERS’:

    Separately, the premier said the government “will take action” if safety precautions agreed upon by ulema were not followed. 

    He said that Pakistan was an “independent nation” and it could not force worshippers to not pray in mosques. 

    “The war for coronavirus is being fought by the entire country. It will not differentiate between the rich and the poor. It can happen to anyone,” he said, adding that ulema had signed a 20-point agreement with President Arif Alvi, under which mosques will be reopened with special measures in place. He, however, urged people to pray at home. 

    “I would urge my Pakistanis to stay at home and pray,” he said. “Other Muslim countries have urged their citizens to do the same. But if you have to go to mosques, keep this in mind. You will have to obey these conditions,” he added.

    The premier said if people did not follow the safety precautions and cases surged in mosques during Ramzan, the government will have no other option but to take back its decision. “The government will shut mosques if safety precautions are not followed and this was mentioned in the agreement.”

  • Fawad says ignorance of conservative religious class, not coronavirus, god’s wrath

    Fawad says ignorance of conservative religious class, not coronavirus, god’s wrath

    Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has said that God’s wrath “was the ignorance of the conservative religious class that had led to the coronavirus outbreak in Pakistan”.

    “The global outbreak of coronavirus has spread in Pakistan due to ignorance of the religious community and now they say coronavirus is a punishment from God and we need to repent,” he tweeted.

    He added that scholars who have the knowledge and the intellect were blessings of Allah, but to give an ignorant status of a scholar was destruction.

    “66 studies are going on in which 43 are on new vaccines, 16 on new antibiotics and seven are focusing on antibodies,” the minister said later.

    On Wednesday, several of Pakistan’s senior religious leaders announced that they would keep mosques open for group prayers, on a day when the country’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 crossed the 1,000 mark.   

    The declaration seemed to counter an announcement from President Arif Alvi that upon his request, Egypt’s Al-Azhar University’s religious clerics’ council issued a fatwa — an Islamic religious edict — that public gatherings, including group prayers in mosques, can be banned in the interest of public health. 

    The Cairo-based university is one of the oldest seats of Islamic learning, founded almost a century before Oxford University, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. 

    The Pakistani clerics said young children, old people, those who were sick or taking care of the sick could stay home. They also guided their followers to install sanitizers at the entrances of mosques, and advised more cleanliness.