The corona regulations meant that there was insufficient space at the mosque on Maxstraße to enable all the local Muslims to pray, and so they were pleased to be able to use the sports facilities. Prayers could be held there in compliance with the rules: The participants spread out their prayer mats on the playing field at appropriate distances, there was a disinfection station at the entrance, face masks were compulsory, and contact details had to be left behind. These were stored for two months, explained co-organiser Fatih Savas, who is also a member of the Bonn Integration Council.

But the strictest restriction was the ban on contact. “Iyi Bayramlar” is the Turkish wish for a blessed feast, and usually involves shaking hands or hugging. During the prayers at the Hohe Straße, it was repeatedly pointed out that this should be avoided. “We all embraced each other spiritually,” Imam Ensar Isik called out to those praying. He is the new prayer leader at the IGMG mosque. “As a fresh Imam, I am confronted with the corona virus immediately after my training,” he said. “Not everyone gets the chance to pray in the open air.”

He thanked the city for the decision to relax the corona requirements for this festival and to open the sports grounds - prayers were also held on the Finkenberg, the Heiderhof and the sports field of the Bertolt-Brecht comprehensive school. “This shows that Muslims are a part of society. And that we act together because we are affected by the pandemic together,” he said. Isik led the first of two prayers in Tannenbusch, each for 300 Muslims. As is customary, the participants then made charitable donations to the Hasene international relief and social association, whose chairman is Gülbahar. Isik said that the money would benefit needy people all over the world - and not only Muslims, he emphasised. Many then went to the North Cemetery to visit their relatives’ graves, so that they, according to the Imam, could also participate in the festival. Especially important for the children was the subsequent visit to their grandparents, which is often accompanied by gifts of pocket money.

Rahim Öztürker, Chairman of the Bonn Integration Council, also thanked the city of Bonn for the speedy decision: The application was submitted on Monday 18 May and approved on Friday. “This was a real Bayram gift,” said Öztürker. According to him, everything went off peacefully and everyone complied with the requirements. This idea may be used again in two months, Öztürker said, for the celebrations of the Festival of Sacrifice. This is the most important holy day for the Muslims, who make up 10.6 percent of Bonn's population. If the corona regulations are still in force, the sports fields could be used as places of worship once more.

According to the press office, the mosque communities had developed the hygiene measures for Eid themselves. The city had checked and approved them. However, there was also criticism of this decision on social media over the weekend: a number of people considered the risk of infection to be too great when so many people come together to pray. In Hanau in the state of Hesse, a sugar feast event at a stadium on Saturday was cancelled at short notice after many people were infected during a service at a Frankfurt Baptist church on 10 May. The city and the responsible district explained that the risk at the sugar feast was too great.

(Original text: Stefan Knopp, Andreas Baumann / Translation: Caroline Kusch)