Imam Rizwan Khan serves as a Missionary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Under the direction and guidance of the spiritual system of leadership, known as Khilafat (Caliphate), of the worldwide Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Imam Rizwan Khan has dedicated his life to serving Islam and spreading its message of love and peace.
Was there anything unusual that arose as your community transitioned into the new forms of practice (online; outside) at the beginning of the pandemic?
A lot of our practice is defined by our scriptures to be done in a very specific way, which has been true since the very inception of Islam. To make changes under these conditions was new. One of the basic precepts of daily prayer is that its done shoulder to shoulder. That creates the brotherhood and sisterhood, and the proximity also contributes to the solidarity of the community. Islam is flexible, so it adjusted. This was the first time the prayers have been practiced with distance between us.
Also, there are certain congregational worships that are done only in the mosque. Friday prayers, for instance, are obligatory and always at a mosque. Because there is no ordained clergy, family members can be a leader of that prayer service. This is the first time that families were leading these prayers with the Arabic, delivering a sermon, reciting the verses themselves, in their homes.
How did you handle pastoral care?
You just can’t do that over Zoom. Families planned very small weddings. Interestingly, we encourage and prefer that anyway. There is a correlation between the size and expense of a large wedding and how likely it is for that marriage to fail. Materialism is discouraged in Islam; it’s not good for a community or a marriage. It was a blessing and surprise because those who got married during the pandemic started off their life together on a better financial footing.
Funerals were more difficult to maintain rules. A funeral is something that people feel compelled to attend. We had more people arrive for funeral prayers than we wanted, but we just did our best to maintain social distancing and do as much outside as we could. As far as those who got sick, the doctors within our community called on them to make sure everyone was being looked after.
How did you sense God moving and providing for your community? How did you see your community’s faith rise to the occasion?
For me, a time of separation from others, a time for reflection, was unique. Isolation is found in many faith traditions as a search for God. It was an invaluable time. Spiritually I feel I benefited a lot – personal reflection, individual worship. I noticed this in the larger community, as well. A spiritual awakening, especially during the fasting and prayers during the month of Ramadan.
It was a silver lining. It is hard for me to reconcile myself with how positive that aspect of the experience was along with the negative of what was happening in the larger society. We all had the chance to ask, “Who am I?” “What am I when you strip everything away?”
How did the apart time affect your community’s sense of solidarity? How did you maintain a sense of the whole?
Islam puts a lot of focus on social reinforcement. There is a value in meeting in person shaking hands, standing alongside. So that sense of community definitely did suffer. During the lockdown, a disconnect did happen. You can’t make that same connection online. So, the extroverts involved themselves more in text conversations and reaching out to others virtually, because there is a real absence there: something missing that we are trying to make up for through these other means. A lot of people felt that slow burn of loneliness. They had to balance their need to get out of the house with the risk involved in doing that. Even I, an introvert, only noticed when we first started regathering for meals and prayers how much I missed what had been gone.
What do you think people of faith need to be especially mindful of as we emerge from the pandemic?
There is one point specific to the Ahmadiyya community, because we have one worldwide leader. He has been reminding us during this time that injustice is rising all over the world to the point where things are becoming very fragile, and the future is uncertain. A large-scale calamity seems almost an inevitability. We have always been asked to turn away from materialism and the grind toward spirituality. It has been eye-opening for members of our community to see how unstable the worldwide economy is. Everybody can see that the world is not headed in a good direction, and we must remind ourselves to turn toward God.
What are your hopes and fears about what to retain or change going forward?
On the ground, the virtual communication. We hadn’t done that much before and we’re definitely going to retain that to the degree that they are beneficial. These resources were always there, we now see the advantages.
As far as the other changes, how we approach life, our thinking, I hope that does continue. Because when we are in a state of security, there is a different type of thinking. It seems like a different world from even five years ago. That maturity we have gained just having gone through the political instability, the economic instability, that is what teaches wisdom. This is learned through the rigors of life. We can see a broad perspective that takes the world into account and is more aware.
What do you hope your community will remember about this season in five to ten years?
I think of huge changes that happened before, like before and after World War I and World War II. When these vast changes happen, the world is never really the same afterwards. So, I hope ten years from now, that when we look back on this time, we wouldn’t have forgotten the lessons we learned. The scriptures speak about this: when a person is in a storm on a ship they agree to change, but when they arrive back to land, they forget. I see this last year as a storm where we were very vulnerable and in touch with the reality of our situation. Maybe we had a moment of clarity. In ten years, I hope it wasn’t a moment of clarity, but that this moment will have turned into a lifetime of clarity.