It has been evident that Tableeghi Jamaat members are particularly prone to get infected by the Corona virus. In March, a couple of Palestinians were infected after attending a gathering at Raiwind and spread the virus among their country men. Last month too the annual gathering at Raiwind must have seen thousands of devotees and it looks like some members of my extended family either got the virus there or from those who had returned from Raiwind.
About a couple of weeks back my wife's nephew and his wife got sick, but both have fortunately recovered. Now the wife of a distant relative named Wahab (who joined the Jamaat when very few people had heard of it) got the virus and the poor woman couldn't survive. I'm sure she was infected by someone who had returned from last month's gathering. Her husband has it too but apparently it hasn't affected him so much. He had made sure that I would have a comfortable stay during Hajj in 2005 (it was his sixteenth pilgrimage). On the last day we had been stranded in Mina and he had ordered us to stay in our tents due to the heavy rains. I advised him to call the local radio or TV station and ask them for a weather forecast, but he didn't respond. After my third attempt, a fellow pilgrim from UK told me it would have no effect on him because (like other fundamentalists) he believed that only God knows whether it'll rain or not.
Sometimes I envy such people. They don't need to get a higher education, they don't have to read newspapers or watch TV, all they are concerned with is to convert as many people as they can to their version of religion. Which is why I can bet that he will not prevent visitors coming to his house to condole with him, and unfortunately more people will be infected. So, as my relatives say, if it is written that you will die of Covid-19, nothing you do will stop it.
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