Abstract:
This study investigated the effect of COVID-19 on religious practices in Turkey. The pandemic is an extremely infectious disease that is caused by a new coronavirus. The disease was first discovered in China in December 2019 and has spread worldwide, causing so much unprecedented sicknesses deaths and unemployment. Turkey identifies its first case in March 2020 which causes so many infections and deaths leading to lockdowns and curfews which affects so many practices like 2020/2021 Muslim Fasting, Prayers, 2020/2021 hajj pilgrimage, the zakat/charity, congregational prayers etc. In Turkey Fasting is one of the interesting things for many especially foreign students. In the previous years where there was no case of Novel COVID-19, people go for "Iftar", neighbours' share food, family members eat together in one house, some families go to restaurants for breaking of their fasting, congregational prayers were held in both mosques and churches and many other practices. Due to the emergence of COVID-19, most of these activities are not possible now. Primary and secondary data were used. A structured interview guide was used to interview 32 respondents conveniently and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The research revealed that COVID-19 has a strong negative impact on religious practices in Turkey. We recommend that WHO should the various government of countries get a vaccine for this killer disease. The study was beneficial to key stakeholders.
|