Coronavirus: Year of Ramadan solitude as Muslims forced to stay home

It will be a solemn rather than celebratory Eid this year as COVID-19 forces Muslims to stay home.

Rizky Riansy prays outside a closed mosque his Jakarta neighbourhood after finishing work. Picture: Ed Wray

Like millions of Indonesians who have moved to Jakarta for work, Rizky Riansyah looks forward to Ramadan, the annual Muslim month of fasting and evening gatherings that ends with an ­exodus of workers to their home villages and families for the Eid holiday.

The most important Muslim festival, much like Christmas, is a time for generations of family to come together, just as the fasting month preceding is one of communal struggle in which the daily triumph over hardship is celebrated in collegiate sunset gatherings for meals (iftar) and prayer.

Not this year.

All public iftar gatherings of more than five people are prohibited in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, as they are across large parts of the Islamic world — including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia — as governments seek to curb the voracious spread of the coronavirus.

So, too, are large mosque gatherings for the special Tarawih evening prayer, and the mass Eid prayers that lend themselves year after year to famous images of hundreds of covered heads bent in the collective act of devotion. They must instead be said at home.

The Indonesian government on Tuesday also finally — and somewhat reluctantly — banned the Eid holiday exodus known as mudik next month in which tens of millions of Indonesians would travel back to their villages.

“I think I will feel very lonely this year.

“I’m mentally prepared for not going home, but I’m really sad about it,” Rizky, a 30-year-old ­accountant working in the social affairs ministry, told The Australian on the eve of Ramadan, which begins on Friday.

“Meeting up with old friends, ex-colleagues, for iftar parties is a big part of Ramadan for me.

“Some of my friends have said that they want to do video calls but it won’t feel the same at all.”

As a single man living in one of Jakarta’s thousands of rooming houses, known as a kos, there is also the practical problem of where, and how, to break his fast each evening in a city in partial lockdown.

“I don’t know if there will be any food sellers around my area. I don’t see them around.

“I can cook rice in my kos but that’s about it. I’m a little worried about fasting month … maybe I will buy cooked food to last for a week at least.”

It is hard to overstate the collective sadness at the COVID-19 ­restrictions at a time when millions of Muslims would seek consolation in family, community, mass prayer and charity, although it is the poor who are hardest hit as unemployment soars and food ­prices spike.

The Ulema Council of Indonesia (MUI), the country’s most powerful Islamic body, has urged Indonesian Muslims to “welcome the holy month with joy … even in this situation which feels a little painful”.

“It’s painful to see images of the Kaabah (holy building in Mecca) and even mosques in Indonesia suddenly empty,” MUI deputy chairman Ikhsan Abdullah said on Wednesday. “There must be some wisdom to be gained from this.

“I think this is a good opportunity to remind people that Allah is not in the ­Kaabah, in the mosque or in any prayer room. Allah is in your house, so pray at home to welcome Allah in your house.”

In Malaysia and Indonesia, mosques will this year livestream Ramadan prayers and religious lectures, while several charities are urging people to donate online and many organisations have said they are ­planning “virtual ­iftars” to compensate.

That is all small comfort for “Resty”, part of an army of ­domestic workers in Jakarta who have left their families behind in villages to clean other people’s houses and rear other people’s children.  

The 43-year-old nanny had long ago booked a ticket back to her home town of Banyumas in Central Java, desperate to see her 13-year-old daughter and two-year-old son, who live there with her husband.

Up until Tuesday, she was adamant nothing was going to stop her boarding that train — not the coronavirus and not the ­govern­ment — but the mudik ban has left her crushed with disappointment.

“I feel so sad I can’t even ­describe my feelings,” she told The Australian. I can’t imagine Eid without my family. It feels unfair because I’m just travelling within my country. I don’t know how I will tell my husband. Inshallah, he will understand but my heart feels heavy and I can’t accept this.

“I still want to go home, despite everything. I miss my baby.”