Muslims face rare conundrum: How to offer Eid namaz at home?

Two sets or four? Twelve extra chantings or none at all? These are just some of the questions that Muslims are asking about praying what’s going to be their first-ever Eid namaz at home.

The most important public aspect of Eid-ul-Fitr is the special morning prayer offered in Eidgahs, which are large open spaces. Dressed in their best clothes, sporting colourful caps (topi) and smelling of Itr (perfume), the devout pray to the Almighty in gratitude for blessing them with the holy month of Ramzan. Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated in most parts of India on Monday.

The Eid namaz is unlike other prayers in Islam. While Muslims can offer the daily prayers individually or at home during emergencies or in case of their inability to make it to the mosque, the Eid namaz is a mass prayer. But as Covid-19 turns lives upside down, Muslims grapple with a problem they never faced before: how to offer Eid namaz at
home?

“I had promised my little daughter that I’ll take her to the Eidgah this year,” says Mohammed Dawood Shaikh, who works at a private college. “She’s asking me, ‘Abbu, when will we go to the Eidgah.’ I have no answer.”

Like other Muslims, Shaikh says he will also pray at home. The Karnataka State Board of Auqaf stated as much in an order last week.

Maqsood Imran Rashadi, the imam of City Jamia Masjid, the most prominent mosque in Bengaluru, has offered a solution. If there are at least four people at home, they can pray the two sets (rak’aat) of Eid namaz together, complete with the 12 extra Takbeerat (chantings). But if there are fewer people, they can pray any Nafl (optional) namaz or none at all, he explains.

The Eid namaz also has the ubiquitous practice of hugging and shaking hands. So integral is hugging to Eid and its concept of brotherhood that Urdu poets have often used it as a metaphor for a union of love birds. ‘Eid ka din hai, gale aaj to mil le zaalim/rasm-e-duniya bhi hai, mauqa bhi hai, dastoor bhi hai,’ the poet says to his beloved. (It’s the day of Eid, hug me o my tormentor. It’s a tradition, an occasion and a convention)

But not this time. “No hugging or shaking hands,” Rashadi said. “A day’s recklessness can ruin months of hard work (of social distancing).”