MUMBAI: With places of worship reopening on Thursday, the city’s mosques as well as iconic Sufi shrines like Haji Ali and Mahim dargah are making their own preparations, which includes arranging for halal (non-alcoholic) sanitisers for worshippers.
Islam prohibits the use of alcohol. The halal sanitisers used by these shrines will instead contain hydrogen peroxide and colloidal silver.
“We will ensure that the SOPs issued by the government are complied with. We will also keep halal or non-alcoholic sanitisers for devotees,” said Sohail Khandwani, managing trustee of Mahim dargah and trustee of Haji Ali dargah.
He added that no devotee will be permitted inside the shrines without face masks, and social distancing will be maintained strictly. Both at Haji Ali and Mahim dargahs, separate queues for men and women will be formed for better crowd management.
Shoeb Khatib, president of Juma Masjid of Bombay Trust, which manages both Juma Masjid near Crawford Market and Bada Kabrastan at Marine Lines, said that a full-body disinfection machine is being installed at the iconic mosque’s entrance. “Nobody will be allowed to enter the mosque without getting sanitised completely. We will follow all the protocols that the government has issued,” he said.
While 30 to 35 people will be allowed to enter Mahim dargah at a time, at the mosques, social distancing will be maintained between worshippers on the prayer mats. “On the prayer mats, adequate space between worshippers will be kept vacant,” explained Khatib.
The permission to reopen places of worship comes after a long period of financial crisis, as donations had dried up in the last two years. Mosques and dargahs run mainly on donations, but Khandwani said that even regular donors had curtailed donations substantially as their businesses were severely affected during the lockdowns.
