SINGAPORE — Four mosques in Singapore will split Friday prayers into two sessions from next week onwards in a pilot to bring down the density of people congregating at mosques. They will also tap technology to reduce crowds when mosques here reopen next Friday (March 27).

The moves come as the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) announced on Monday (March 16) that the closure of mosques across Singapore will be extended until March 26 inclusive.

All 70 mosques here have been shut since last Friday, when it was found that several Singaporeans who had attended a religious gathering at a mosque on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia were diagnosed with Covid-19.

Since then, it has been confirmed that a total of 101 people from Singapore are known to have attended the religious gathering, of which five have been infected by the coronavirus.

Contact tracing by the Ministry of Health here found that the five patients had frequented at least 10 mosques while they were infectious.

With mosques reopening next Friday, Mr Masagos Zulkifli, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, said that four mosques here will hold two sessions of Friday prayers when they reopen, to reduce the spread of the virus.

They are Maarof Mosque in Jurong West, An-Nur Mosque in Woodlands, Mujahidin Mosque in Queenstown and Muhajirin Mosque in Toa Payoh.

“We want to practise this in four mosques first and as we learn how to operationalise this, we will do it in more mosques. This is to bring down the density of the number of people congregating at any one time at the mosque,” Mr Masagos said during a press briefing at Muis.

Each prayer session will be half an hour long, and congregants must maintain a farther distance from each other than they normally do.

Sermons will be shortened, with an expanded version to be made available online.

Mufti Nazirudin Mohd Nasir, the religious leader for Muslims in Singapore who was also present at the briefing, said: “We don’t want to shortchange the community on the messages that they need to get, so we will provide a fuller text or video of the sermon which would have been delivered on a normal day.”

USE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Technology that can let people know the crowd numbers at various mosques is being tested.

Other measures to reduce the transmission of the virus will also be put in place. Congregants will have their temperature taken when entering mosques. Mosque officials will keep track of those who visit the place of worship to facilitate contact tracing if necessary.

All congregants are also required to take along their own prayer mats, also known as sejadah, instead of sharing them. This is to improve hygiene among congregants.

Mosques will remind congregants to refrain from shaking hands and perform the “salam mufti” instead, which involves placing their hands over their chest.

NOT THE LAST TIME MOSQUES MAY BE SHUT

Mr Masagos said that this will “clearly” not be the last time that mosques will be closed.

“There can be other occasions, whether it is to prevent spread within our community and consequently to the nation, or because there is a coordinated effort to close everything down.”

Addressing concerns by some Muslims that they are not performing their religious duty by being unable to attend mosques, Dr Nazirudin said that the authorities wanted to give “full reassurance” to the community that this is not the case.

“Islam has provided for the whole range of concessions in times of need and not to be exploited and not to be taken lightly,” he said.

“I think in our contemporary modern life, there is no bigger challenge than what we are facing now in terms of the health crisis, but also the threat to human lives if we do not take the necessary precautions at the mosque.”