Is Wudu the Secret of Pakistan's Success Against COVID19?
By Riaz Haq
CA
India is setting new global records in daily COVID19 cases while neighboring Pakistan has seen a consistent decline in cases in recent weeks. This is happening in spite of the fact that both nations have taken similar measures on paper to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Both have imposed lockdowns. Both have required people to wear face masks in public. Then why this difference? Is it the way the measures are implemented? Or the fact that people in Muslim-majority Pakistan wash their hands before prayers much more often every day, a hygiene practice highly recommended by public health experts during the pandemic? Or could it be that fewer women in Pakistan participate in the work force? Let's examine this difference.
As the COVID19 pandemic began, many Muslim scholars began to recommend that people wash their hands for 20 seconds with soap before doing wudu. While British urban neighborhoods with large ethnic minority populations make up more than three quarters of England's coronavirus hotspots, the numbers coming from Muslim communities in areas which could be expected to be hard-hit are low.
In terms of global numbers, there are no major Muslim-majority countries among the most affected by coronavirus, with the possible exception of Iran. As of now, the top five nations most affected by COVID-19 are: United States, Brazil, India, Russia and Peru. Measuring by deaths per million, the top five are: Belgium, Spain, UK, Italy and Sweden. Muslims make up a tiny percentage of the population in these countries.
Professor Richard Webber of Newcastle University has attributed this phenomenon to cultural habits such as frequent hand washing (wudu) that may be protecting England's Muslims from coronavirus. The Webber Phillips report shows that of 17 coronavirus hotspots in Britain – three quarters of which have large minority populations – Muslim areas are ‘conspicuous by their absence’.
Muslim women, however, may be protected and contribute to lower rates among their communities because so few of them have jobs – a report by the Young Foundation shows just 29 per cent of British Muslim women are employed. Labor force participation rate of women in India and Pakistan is about the same at 22%.
Dr Syra Madad, the 34-year-old Pakistani-American head of New York City’s Health and Hospitals System-wide Special Pathogens Program, conveys the importance of personal hygiene in containing the spread of viruses. She takes regular breaks to say her prayers at the Islamic Center of New York University. Before entering the prayer room, Madad stops to perform wudu, and washes her hands, mouth and face as well as her feet, according to a Washington Post report.
Dr Madad is featured in a six-part Netflix documentary series "Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak". She had warned of a deadly pandemic in December, 2019, just days before China reported to the World Health Organization that it was treating dozens of patients for a novel virus of unknown origin. We now know it as coronavirus or Covid-19. The series debuted in January 2020, but recent events have pushed it into Netflix’s “Top 10 in the US Today.”
Dr Syra Madad is a devout Muslim. The Netflix series shows her praying at her home in Long Island, New York. She says, "I live and breathe being a Muslim. It shapes my daily life. I don't drink, I don't eat meat that's not halal ... I do no harm and help others".
(Riaz Haq is a Silicon Valley-based Pakistani-American analyst and writer. He blogs at www.riazhaq.com)
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