The mosques were closed temporarily on 13 March 2020, and meant to reopen the same month. As the risk to the community remains high, the Fatwa Committee in Singapore recommended on 24 March to continue the closure of mosques and suspend Friday prayers until further notice. In making this recommendation, the committee is guided by two principles that apply in a situation like COVID-19, i.e. to avoid all forms of harm and to close all doors that lead to danger and harm.
In response, Muis has partnered MuslimSG to launch OurMasjid.SG - a community crowdfunding initiative for mosques. With this new platform, it is now easier for the community to make online donations to mosques.
Singapore mosque overheads include salaries as well as utilities costs. They employ more than 2,000 staff which includes Mosque Religious Officers (MRO), Social Development Officers (SDO), aLIVE teachers, imam, bilal, admin officers as well as maintenance & support officers (noja). These frontliners face thousands of congregants weekly, and play important roles in keeping religious life alive at the mosques.
In addition, while there have been efforts by the mosques to promote water and energy conservation, mosques continue to be in need for support from the public to defray such costs to ensure the cleanliness and safe operations of mosques. Water and utilities alone account for almost 4% of mosque annual expenditure.
Separately, KuliahSG will centralise online religious content provided by the mosques. Starting out as a ground-up initiative by two individuals, KuliahSG is a centralised portal for online programmes produced by mosques. Muis and mosques are fully supportive of this initiative and will work together with KuliahSG in the spirit of helping the community gain access to Islamic online content which asatizah and mosques in Singapore are producing daily, Muis said.
Despite the physical closure of the mosques, mosque asatizah and staff have been working hard to continue to serve the spiritual needs of congregants by bringing mosque programmes and religious content online. For example, over 50 mosques now have put up online content, comprising over 1,130 videos. Mosques are also continuing with Islamic education for the young, by conducting aLIVE lessons through home-based learning.
Muis announced on 7 April 2020 that S$1 million had been set aside to support mosques during their temporary closure due to COVID-19. The organisation is working with partners under the SGTeguhBersatu Task Force to provide a comprehensive assistance package for asatizah, the mosque sector, as well as the tenants of wakaf properties.
With the temporary closure of the mosques, Muis noted that many asatizah have lost both their primary platform to reach the community as well as a source of income. Muis will assist asatizah in applying for assistance under the Resilience Package, including the Self-Employed Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) and the Temporary Relief Fund (TRF).
For SIRS, Muis will work with NTUC, and will accept applications from self-employed ARS-certified asatizah who are eligible for this scheme. Muis will outreach to asatizah to raise awareness of the scheme, and guide asatizah through the application process.
Asatizah who are eligible to receive the support under the scheme will receive three payouts of S$3,000, starting from May.
Muis will also work with MSF to assist and support asatizah to apply for the Temporary Relief Fund via the designated online portal. Asatizah who experienced a drop in income due to COVID-19 will receive a one-off payment of S$500. In addition, asatizah who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 can also apply for the COVID-19 Assistance Grant and receive S$800 a month, for three months.
Asatizah who wish to apply for these schemes can call +65 6350 5374 or 6350 1440 for assistance.
Muis has also helped mosques to move more lessons and classes online. This includes programmes conducted by its religious officers, home-based learning for aLIVE madrasahs* and other Islamic learning classes. Muis will also share a toolkit with IECPs** and home-based Quranic teachers to encourage more to continue their classes via online platforms. This will ensure they continue to draw income during this period.
To support and prepare asatizah for beyond the crisis, Muis will partner MENDAKI Sense to support the upskilling of asatizah. To complement the Self-Employed Person (SEP) Training Support Scheme, Muis will encourage asatizah to upskill especially in areas like digital marketing, technology-enabled learning delivery and counselling. This will be tied to the launch of the Career Map and Competency Framework (CCF), one of the recommendations from COFA***, later this month, which will create more opportunities and enhance the career pathways for asatizah.
Given that the closure of mosques will affect them financially, Muis earlier said that it will provide grants to support mosques to adopt enhanced precautions to deal with COVID-19 when they reopen. This includes temperature taking, contract tracing, and manpower and systems for queue management.
In addition, as the aLIVE class is partially affected by the closure of the mosque and will be replaced with home learning, Muis will give a grant to mosques to waive the aLIVE fee by 50% for two months. Parents in the aLIVE programme will be informed by their respective mosques on the details of this fee waiver.
Muis is committed to supporting businesses and organisations which are renting wakaf properties. In this regard, Muis will pass on all the property tax rebates provided by the government from the Resilience and Solidarity Budgets. In addition, Muis will provide additional rental waivers to commercial tenants as well as community tenants.
Wakaf properties are those dedicated by a Muslim for a purpose recognised by Muslim law as pious, religious; or charitable. Community tenants refer to non-profit organisations and SMEs offering socio-religious services.
All commercial and community tenants will receive a baseline rental waiver of 1.5 months as part of passing on property tax rebates to tenants. Commercial tenants will receive an additional 0.5 month rental waiver on top of the associated tax rebates while community tenants will receive an additional two months' rental waiver. In total, commercial tenants of wakaf properties will receive a two-month rental waiver while community tenants of wakaf properties will receive a four-month rental waiver.
Muis has also said that zakat financial assistance will remain available at the 31 Social Development Mosques.
Details:
Members of the community can make their contributions online at https://ourmasjid.sg (English) or https://ourmasjid.sg/ms/ourmasjid-home-ml/ (Malay) via credit and debit cards, eNETs, PayNow and GIRO. Recurring payments can also be made through credit/debit card or GIRO to help support the mosques in the long term.
*ALIVE (Learning Islamic Values Everyday) are religious programmes for children across various age groups (kids, tween, teens, youth). The programmes are conducted at mosques across Singapore.
** Islamic education centres and providers (IECP) provide religious instructions (e.g. lectures, classes) at various location. IECPs are required to employ teachers who are registered under the Asatizah Recognition Scheme (ARS) and to ensure that the curriculum, learning materials and teachers employed comply with the ARS Code of Ethics.
***The Committee of Future Asatizah (COFA) was formed in March 2019 to spearhead engagement on the Vision for Asatizah of the Future. The committee recently published a report outlining three key thrusts and 10 recommendations, based on the Vision of Future Asatizah.