Crosby neighborhood in Johannesburg, predominantly Muslim. A fiery sun is about to set over the Masjid Muaaz bin Jabal mosque and its two white minarets, as believers rush to prayer at the call of the muezzin. Some grabbed a snack, ready for iftar. Ramadan ends in a few days, and this year it will have brought its share of additional sacrifices: with the energy crisis getting worse month by month, power cuts are getting longer and more frequent. They are scheduled in two to four hour increments and can be very disabling for Muslims who practice holy fasting. “We have thirteen hours of fasting during the day. So if there’s a power outage before 5 a.m., you have to eat cold food and it’s harder to get through the day,” says Hammad, an engineer for a telephone company.
The sehri – morning meal during Ramadan – is also the most complicated to manage for Zahrah Singh, a 25-year-old data scientist. “Normally I have a hot cup of tea with my sehri but I’ve only been able to do that five times this month. Ramadan was completely different this year because power cuts are usually not that big. Being a young professional who has just left home, I cannot afford the alternative options of solar or gas stove. So I also often have to break the fast by having a take-out meal, and it costs me dearly. Some women also complain of having difficulty navigating the cuts for meal preparation, without it affecting their prayers. On social networks, many are calling on the national electricity production company Eskom to take Ramadan into account in its load shedding schedules, sparing the hours before dawn and sunset. Calls remained a dead letter when the Muslim community represents only 1.5% of the population.
The cuts do not only interfere with meals, but also with ritual ablutions before each prayer, explains Faizal Suffla, beard and white kufi. Some residents find themselves momentarily deprived of water by the stationary pumps, while others cannot heat it. “The mosque has a generator, but not everyone can wash here. And many of the faithful, especially women, say their prayers at home. Some parts of the neighborhood are sometimes without electricity for several days at a time due to malfunctions.
Riaz Nabee, an imposing man draped in a white qamis (long tunic), keeps smiling. “It’s all about preparation. It is even more necessary than usual to anticipate, but load shedding is not new. He himself decided to partially free himself from the constraints of the electricity network by installing solar panels on his house. “It works less at night, of course, but it’s already a great relief. »
As the imam of another mosque concludes: “The month of Ramadan is a month of sacrifices. We are used to dealing with this kind of situation, we deal with it. »
