Letter from Muslim Faith Leaders to the U.K. Prime Minister

Fol­low­ing the recent deci­sion by the Eng­lish gov­ern­ment to go into anoth­er nation­al lock­down — we all feared the worst in terms of its impact on our day-to-day lives. A key respite dur­ing these trou­bling times was the deci­sion to allow places of wor­ship to remain open, how­ev­er this was unfor­tu­nate­ly only for pri­vate wor­ship which is some­what prob­lem­at­ic in par­tic­u­lar for the Mus­lim faith as the Masjid is actu­al­ly estab­lished for con­gre­ga­tion­al prayer. Hav­ing said that, in real­i­ty it is not con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers as would be under­stood from a Chris­t­ian under­stand­ing but very much akin to syn­chro­nised pri­vate worship.

There­fore the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty felt the need to express their views to the Right Hon­ourable Prime Min­is­ter so that he would be aware of their sen­ti­ments with regards to the impact of this lat­est nation­al lock­down. As a result Wifaqul Ulamā and the Lan­cashire Coun­cil of Mosques ini­ti­at­ed this this let­ter which was sup­port­ed by over 35 nation­al organ­i­sa­tions rep­re­sent­ing more than 500 mosques, equat­ing to approx­i­mate­ly a mil­lion believers.

This let­ter was ini­tial­ly intend­ed to be pre­sent­ed direct­ly to the Prime Min­is­ter how­ev­er due to COVID-19 restric­tions it was hand­ed to Chris Philp MP for Croy­don who had hand deliv­ered the let­ter to the office of the PM this evening.

وَمَنْ يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ
“WHOEVER PUTS HIS TRUST IN ALLAH; HE WILL BE ENOUGH FOR HIM.” (65:3)
We have done our utmost to direct­ly address the Prime Min­is­ter to keep our Masajid open for Salah with jama’at. All we can do is our very best with what we can control.
We leave our affair to Allah جل جلاله for He is the best of planners.

The fol­low­ing is the let­ter and list of the organ­i­sa­tions that signed the let­ter at the time of publication

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The Rt Hon Boris John­son MP
Prime Minister
10 Down­ing Street
LONDON
SW1A 2AA

02 Novem­ber 2020

Dear Prime Minister,

We the under­signed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of mosques and faith organ­i­sa­tions from across Eng­land are deeply con­cerned as you are about the present spike in infections.

We sup­port and appre­ci­ate the efforts of the Gov­ern­ment and the NHS in this regard.

We would like to express our deep con­cern in regards to the impact the pro­posed lock­down restric­tions will have on com­mu­ni­ties across our country.

Since March, places of wor­ship across the coun­try have played and con­tin­ue to play a piv­otal role in sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties of all faiths and none. As we came out of lock­down, places of wor­ship — includ­ing mosques — have imple­ment­ed a rig­or­ous sys­tem of social dis­tanc­ing and oth­er pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures to ensure the well­be­ing of all wor­ship­pers and min­imise poten­tial risks.

We believe that the con­tin­ued run­ning of places of wor­ship with all the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions is vital for the well­be­ing of all com­mu­ni­ties. It is there­fore our request that places of wor­ship are allowed to con­tin­ue oper­at­ing con­gre­ga­tion­al wor­ship sub­ject to the social dis­tanc­ing and oth­er nec­es­sary safe­guards, which are already in place.

Please kind­ly note that via con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers key gov­ern­ment mes­sages were being cas­cad­ed, com­mu­ni­ty ten­sions were being dif­fused and com­mu­ni­ty cohe­sion was being maintained.

Stop­ping con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers will impact adverse­ly to com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions, when try­ing to cas­cade key messages.

Fur­ther­more, rig­or­ous track and trace sys­tem are being oper­at­ed at places of wor­ship besides the oth­er key Covid reg­u­la­tions being adhered to.

We sin­cere­ly hope you can review this because places of wor­ship and syn­chro­nised wor­ship are essen­tial for the men­tal well­be­ing for many indi­vid­u­als in our com­mu­ni­ties. We are con­fi­dent that like schools, the risks can be man­aged therein.

It is our sin­cere hope and prayer that God Almighty removes this pan­dem­ic from us and the gov­ern­ment is suc­cess­ful in con­trol­ling the pan­dem­ic infec­tion rate too, so that we are able to return to normality.

Yours faith­ful­ly

 

Signed by: