Imam Saladin Hasan.
The Covid-19 pandemic and its repercussions are like the Red Sea: Allah will hold the waves back. In return, all Allah wants is gratitude.
This was the message at this week’s Ju’muah service at the Abdul-Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center on Dixwell Avenue.
Only three were present in the building: the imam, his son and another one of the center’s youth leaders.
“Some of us have lost our jobs. We know that. Those are the waves crashing on the side. Allah will take care of that,” Imam Saladin Hasan said in his sermon at the Friday service.
Another 25 people watched the service through Facebook Live, adding their salaams and amens in the comments.
Hasan told the gathering that showing gratitude to Allah means following God’s rules. Daily prayer, or salah, is an opportunity to both show gratitude and remember those rules, he said.
“We would be foolish to chip away at those walls of the Red Sea and ask, will the water through it if I start knocking it down?” Hasan said. “We are obligated to stay on that straight path. What Allah prohibits, we stay away from.”
The trial of the health crisis also provides members of the center with an opportunity to be grateful for what they do have, Hasan said. He spoke to his virtual audience and told them to win back the person they fell in love with.
“Let him-slash-her know how important they are, how appreciative we are to Allah to have that forever friend next to us on a daily basis,” he said.
The imam said that he was partially talking to himself. He has spent time walking, talking and laughing with his wife like when they were young, he said.
After finishing his message on gratitude, Hasan turned the livestream over to Sabir Abdussabur to lead a prayer. As Abdussabur sang, congregants joined in with “Allahu Akbar” in the comments.
Finally, Hasan read several Covid-related recommendations from the center’s health and wellness chairperson, Tanya Howell. Howell is a registered nurse and draws on guidance from the Center for Disease Control, World Health Organization and Gov. Ned Lamont to keep the Islamic Center safe during the crisis.
Hasan listed names of nurses, firefighters, correction officers and others on the front line of the pandemic at both the beginning and ending of the Ju’muah. He asked his viewers to add any names he missed in the comment section, so the community could pray for them.
“Let’s just ask Allah to hold us to the straight path and not remove us unless we are close to him,” Hasan said.