More than 153,000 slots for Hari Raya prayers this year
More Muslims here can look forward to performing the special Hari Raya Aidilfitri prayers this year, with more than 153,000 spaces being offered compared to last year's 17,192.
A total of 66 mosques islandwide will be conducting the prayers on the morning of Hari Raya Aidilfitri on May 3, which mark the return of such large-scale sessions after two years. No Hari Raya prayers were held in 2020.
The mosques will conduct two prayer sessions that will require prior bookings, while 15 of them which are expecting bigger attendances will have an additional third session that is open for walk-ins, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) said on Friday (April 22).
Bookings for the prayer sessions will open at 10am on April 28. They can be made via this website or the Muslim.sg app, both of which will display the number of available places at each mosque.
Spaces for Muslim women to join in the prayers will be provided at 60 out of the 66 mosques.
"With the wide range of options available, we encourage the community to plan which sessions would provide a comfortable experience for them, and to consider going to less crowded mosques that are located away from neighbourhoods and housing estates," said Muis.
This year's arrangements for the Hari Raya prayers is a marked change from the previous two years.
Hari Raya prayers were not held in 2020 as Singapore was still in the circuit breaker period that prevented large groups from gathering. And last year, mosques could only hold limited sessions of the prayers that were capped at 100 congregants each.
Each prayer session this year will last for 45 minutes. Mosques will take 30 minutes to disinfect and sanitise prayer areas in between sessions. Muis did not specify the limit of congregants for each prayer session, but The Straits Times understands that it depends on the mosque and its capacity.
The first session will start at 7.30am, followed by the second one at 8.45am. Mosques with the additional session will start the third one at 10am.
To ensure that as many Muslims here get to pray, Muis called for congregants to cancel their bookings if they are not able to make it.
"We would also like to urge congregants to cancel their bookings if they are unwell or unable to attend the prayer so that others may get the slot," said the council.
Dr Albakri Ahmad, Muis deputy chief executive, told reporters in an interview on Friday that mosques are expecting many people to attend the prayer sessions.
"We would like to call upon everyone to play their roles to maintain safe distance measures, to put on their masks and to bring their own prayer equipment," he said.
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