Christian, Muslim communities begin period of fasting, prayers

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­tend­ed greet­ings to the Chris­t­ian and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties as Lent and Ra­madan be­gin at the same time in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a na­tion­al mes­sage yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter opened by wish­ing the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty a Lenten sea­son that re­news faith, deep­ens com­pas­sion and strength­ens hope. She al­so greet­ed the Mus­lim Ummah, ex­press­ing hope that fast­ing, prayer and char­i­ty dur­ing Ra­madan will bring be­liev­ers clos­er to Al­lah and fill their homes with peace and bless­ings.

Chris­tians be­gin the 40-day pe­ri­od of Lent to­day, marked by prayer, fast­ing and re­pen­tance, lead­ing up to East­er.

In her mes­sage, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ref­er­enced scrip­ture from the Holy Bible, not­ing that fast­ing is tied to jus­tice, re­new­al and a change of heart.

At the same time, Mus­lims across the coun­try are en­ter­ing the holy month of Ra­madan, a pe­ri­od cen­tred on fast­ing from dawn to sun­set, in­creased prayer and acts of char­i­ty. Per­sad-Bisses­sar quot­ed from the Holy Qur’an, stat­ing that fast­ing is pre­scribed to en­cour­age right­eous­ness, grat­i­tude and de­vo­tion. She said both Lent and Ra­madan call for re­flec­tion, dis­ci­pline, com­pas­sion and sup­port for the vul­ner­a­ble. She added that true ob­ser­vance must be re­flect­ed not on­ly in rit­u­al, but in con­duct and care for oth­ers.

With cit­i­zens gath­er­ing in church­es and mosques na­tion­wide, she not­ed that pro­tec­tive ser­vices and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies had im­ple­ment­ed mea­sures to fa­cil­i­tate safe par­tic­i­pa­tion dur­ing the re­li­gious ob­ser­vances. She called on the na­tion to em­brace uni­ty, re­spect and shared hu­man­i­ty dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

Mean­while, the AS­JA Hi­lal Com­mit­tee has con­firmed that Ra­madan will of­fi­cial­ly be­gin to­mor­row.

Imam Ya­coob Ali said the birth of the new moon oc­curs on Tues­day morn­ing, but at sun­set that day, the moon will not be vis­i­ble any­where in the world. By Wednes­day evening, how­ev­er, the moon is ex­pect­ed to be vis­i­ble from In­dia west­ward, al­low­ing for the start of the new Is­lam­ic month.

He said the month of Sha’baan will com­plete 30 days to­day, with the first day of Ra­madan ob­served to­mor­row. The first Taraweeh prayers will take place tonight fol­low­ing Isha prayers, and the first fast will be­gin at dawn to­mor­row.

Imam Ali ad­vised that all queries re­gard­ing the sight­ing of the new moon can be di­rect­ed to the AS­JA Hi­lal Com­mit­tee.

As the two sa­cred ob­ser­vances un­fold side by side, na­tion­al lead­ers are urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­flect on faith, strength­en com­mu­ni­ty ties and ex­tend com­pas­sion to those in need.