Recently I and my wife went out to a restaurant. It was 8.10 PM, hence I left my family and went to the nearest masjid(assuming Isha Jamaat to be 8.15 PM) to pray Isha salah in jamaat. The masjid was closed by 8.15 PM; one elder man was carrying the keys when I reached there. He said that Isha Jamaat is 7.45 PM. Hence I felt heart broken & want to share my feelings here.
In India, most of the Ahle sunnat wal jamath agrees with 18 Degree calculation for Isha Salah. Hence during this month Isha Salah begining waqt is close to 7.15 in Chennai. Therefore most of the masjids have their Isha Jamaat at 8 PM and very few at 8.15 PM. Chennai is a metro city in India with 10 million(1 crore) population.
Chennai(Madras) is a thickly populated city; and in addition to that all highways, important roads connecting all neighbourhoods are almost jammed after 6 PM. Most of the workers, business men reach home after 8 PM. Even kids have tution in the evenings & most of them are done only by 8 or 8.30 PM.
Majority of the masjid committee is run by retired people who have no business or no work at home. They want to pray early and leave home soon whereas the majority people reach the mohalla after the Isha Salah is over. Majority of the Chennai people sleep only after 11PM including kids. I have few solutions for this
- Have Isha Salah by 9 PM
- Replace these retired people, no concern for Musallis/community from the Masjid committee.
- People who are punctual and regular namazi will pray Salah at 9 too, they wont have any issue about time
- More mussalis join if they Isha Salah is delayed(recently we observed in a masjid where they changed the regular Isha time from 8.30 to 8.15 --> As a result musallis became less)
- It would be very peaceful to pray Isha Salah in jamaat, that too in one's mohalla.
- During Summer we had Isha Salah by 8.30 and in Ramdan by 9 PM too, no one had issue.
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