Get Our Mosques Going Up Every Friday
Importance of behavioural and implementation science
Deen Squad said it best when they sang:
“How we at the mosque going up, on a Friday. I be chillin’ with my brothers down the highway!”
I had never been that excited to be able to attend Friday prayers again last week but having reflected on that experience, there is plenty of room for improvement in the way we do things in our community.
As Singapore gradually reopens through Phase 2 having exited its “circuit breaker” in early June, daily and Friday congregational prayers have finally resumed in most mosques on 26 June 2020 after more than three months of closure to curb the COVID-19 outbreak.
For now, Friday prayers — like the daily congregational ones — are limited to worshippers who managed to reserve a spot online to the chagrin of many, but unlike the daily congregations, worshippers are only allowed to make one reservation within a 3-week window.
To ascertain safe crowd management for Friday prayers, mosques conduct two half-hour prayer sessions of 50 worshippers maximum each praying with a mask on, on their own prayer mat with neither physical nor verbal interaction with others and at a supposedly 1-metre safe distance.
We have seen how Muslim communities all around the world have had to adapt and sacrifice their usual ways of spending Ramadan and celebrating Eid. Efforts put in place last week to resume Friday prayers in Singapore were just as commendable but I believe we can do better. Moreover, in making sure that we are able to minimise the risk of exposure to all congregants and keep our mosques open during this pandemic, we cannot afford any slips or lapses in implementing the safety measures.
Friction Frustrates
When the online prayer booking system opened at 9:00AM last Wednesday, it was overloaded by a high surge of Muslims in Singapore intending to book a Friday prayer slot, resulting in technical issues such as slow web traffic and inaccessibility of the website.
Moreover, users suffer from digital friction existing in the online prayer booking system. To be precise, we had to make at least 11 clicks through a number of drop-down lists to decide on the six filters to apply before being able to see the available capacity of one mosque.
More often than not, available capacity appeared as zero. And because we want to look for an available prayer slot elsewhere, we returned to the beginning of this process only to go through the same course of friction in order to narrow down to one other mosque.
We later realized that available capacity appeared as zero because of the technical issues above. Had there actually been no vacant slots, a message would pop up saying so.
Gone Unnoticed
Safe management measures ensure the congregants’ safety and wellbeing only if they are carried out carefully. There is no questioning the intention of these measures nor the ones who carry them out. Yet, there were still a few gaps that may have gone unnoticed.
The mosque I went to last week had chosen to lay out plastic straw mats row by row on top of its prayer hall carpet. Yellow tape forming a box was pasted on the mats to designate individual prayer spots 1 metre apart. I later realized that the mat on the last row had slid off sideways from its supposed position, hence, breaching the 1 metre apart rule. That explained why I had earlier seen a few congregants on that row trying to keep a safe distance from those in the adjacent row in front. Eventually, they conformed to the social norms of staying within the designated prayer spots even though it was unfavourably less than a metre from the nearest congregant.
In another instance, we were advised by the Imam/Khatib not to perform the supplementary sunnah prayers after the Friday prayers. This is reasonable. The half-hour mark was getting close and there were others waiting outside the mosque for their turn to perform the regular noon prayer. However, one congregant still stood up and was about to perform this supplementary sunnah prayers before a friend stopped to remind him. It turned out that he is non-Malay speaking and could not understand the advice given in Malay earlier. That was when I realized how the delivery of the advice could have been better.
Recommendations
It is all right to make mistakes. Let me put this out there. That means that the issues which happened last week such as the ones I encountered are learning points for us to become better as a community. Unsurprisingly, we — members of the public, mosque officials and relevant authorities — need to work even more closely with one another. Just as the Prophet (ﷺ) said, “A faithful believer to a faithful believer is like the bricks of a wall, enforcing each other.” While (saying that) the Prophet (ﷺ) clasped his hands, by interlacing his fingers. (Sahih Al-Bukhari)
The online prayer booking system needs to be redesigned to anticipate an “overwhelmingly high number” of people trying to access the website at the same time. Remove unnecessary friction and create a simpler and more convenient way of making reservations. In the example below, being able to see the available capacity from an overview will inform better decisions.
In a crisis like this, how we communicate is as imperative as what we communicate. We need to close this gap between our How and our What by doing things more carefully, be it strict designated prayer spots 1-metre apart (oh, I’m so thankful for this extra space to make that last tahiyyat with ease!) or using more than one language to convey our messages. Let us be more mindful of the demographics of the congregation in order that every single one of the 50 congregants know that we care.
I understand it can be difficult sometimes. Behind a mask, I was so sure my uncle was in the congregation that day until the relatives’ Whatsapp group chat revealed he was actually at home. But remember, today is only 50, tomorrow may be more.
Last week, I was Congregant #12, randomly-assigned at the entrance of the mosque, for my chosen Friday prayer session. We have seen how our freedom of choice has been reduced since the pandemic, even changing how we pray as a community. But as we navigate this phase and strive to transition to a safe and full reopening of our society, all of us have a big part to play to get our mosques going up every Friday!
Update: As seen on 14-15 July 2020
The online prayer booking system has been redesigned by minimizing digital friction and indicating to users the available capacities from a cluster overview. As there are now no more slots for Friday prayers on 17 July 2020, below is a screenshot of the daily prayer on 15 July 2020 to show you how the user interface (and experience) have improved. Well done!
