EID Al Adha 1441

Eid Prayers 

Friday 31st July

under COVID 19

As you will be aware, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have not been able to have any in-person activities at Mahfil Ali over the past few months.

We are now able and are choosing to have our first in-person event: Salat al-Eid for Eid al-Adha. We hope that this will be a joyous – albeit very different – occasion.

To maximise the safety of all attendees, there will be a number of restrictions:

• Age: only if you are aged between 12 and 60, will you eligible to attend
• Health: 
  • Only if you are not in a clinically vulnerable category as defined by the government here, will you be eligible to attend
  • If you, or anyone in your household (or “bubble”) have a fever, or have been in contact with someone else who has the coronavirus within the last two weeks, you are not eligible to not attend.
  • If you, or anyone in your household (or “bubble”) have any of the symptoms of COVID-19, you are not eligible to attend

In order to ensure individuals are made aware of, and are comfortable with the restrictions, and to give us the ability to support local health authorities in case of the need for contact tracing, we are requiring anyone who wishes to attend, to register using this form here. Anyone who develops COVID-19 will be asked to inform us immediately.

For those eligible and who receive a confirmation from SICM, we will be having the following additional restrictions:

• Entrance: everyone will be temperature checked and asked to use hand sanitisers on entrance
• Face masks: everyone will be requested to wear a fask mask throughout proceedings
• Shoe areas: everyone will be asked to bring a bag for their shoes to avoid any risk of a bottle neck in the shoe area
• Prayer mat: everyone will be asked to bring their own prayer mat to avoid any risk of catching the virus from the centre  

Changes to how the centre will function:

• At the entrance, the queue will be managed to ensure everyone retains social distancing – you are requested to come in advance, given the extra time it will take to enter
• Each person will be given a specific place to pray with their own prayer mat – this will be appropriately socially distanced, following both government, public health and religious guidelines (there will be a 1.2m gap between rows so standing up, you will be 2.2m away from the person in front; and tehre is a 1.2m gap on the left and right of each person) – this will have been prepared in advance. This means there will be a maximum capacity that we can manage. 
• We will not be allowing any loitering, handshaking or hugging after the prayers.
• The wudu facilities and toilets will be closed
• There will be a one-way system in place
• You will only be allowed to leave at the end at a specified time

Volunteers will be wearing face shields, and we will ask everyone to ensure that they listen to the volunteers’ instructions.

We hope that you understand why we have put these restrictions in place and it may be possible that we may have to increase these restrictions or even cancel the prayer, if the circumstances change.