By Ejaz Khan

It’s the Eve of Jummah, you can feel the spiritual ambience of this ‘weekly eid’ engulf your home. And then it starts.

Aah Yes, that avalanche of Jummah Mubarak messages, (mostly the exact same one’s) hits your phone and the poor device is left in a state of electric epilepsy, vibrating to the sound of a thousand Copy and paste “Inspirational” Jummah Mubarak messages.

This is no new phenomenon, but one that has grown far beyond the old days of communication, back when 5 sms’s would leave you saying, “Yoh! That’s a lot hey..”

• Fast forward to present day, and with the information age in full flow, access to info is a double click away and now, astonishingly, one does not even have to think up stuff on your own, its amazing( not really though); All you gotta do is copy and paste that message from one of your Motivation groups and send to all your contacts. Then someone will copy your copied messages and you will probably get it back in about 2 minutes time, times a hundred. Easy Peezy.

• ‘Jummah Mubaraktitis’ affects 1 in 4 muslim smartphone users while the effect of this 25 % is felt by the whole Ummah collectively*

• Seemingly contagious as the numbers seem to increase all the time.

• Affects females to a greater extend, judging by the lavish use of heart and flower emoticons.

ML Ebrahim Daya: “On Friday you find people will say Jummah Mubarak but wont say Asalaamu Alaikum when greeting.”

Mufti Zubair Bhayat on a Q & A session on Radioislam said: “If you regard Jumma Mubarak Message as a Sunnah then it is wrong, but if you do it just as a good gesture, then there is nothing wrong”.

Mufti Yusuf Moosagie, resident Mufti of Radio Islam says: “To some people it seems their Jummah is incomplete without sending these messages. Its becoming so common, if not checked, as time goes by the lines will be blurred and people will consider it part of deen.”

Some comments from Radio Islam listeners on social Media on Jummah Mubaraktitis:

Twitter:
Umme Saeed ‏@k_fatima:@ejaz_k “if msg is inspiring maybe appropriate relevant to what’s happening in some1 life I will use .Some are just so #JummahMubaraktitis”

@FathimaDhooma:@ejaz_k “Nay! I delete the bc and don’t even bother reading it!”

Facebook:
Sadia Jada says: “Nay! How can people even think of broadcasting Jummah Mubarak messages!! They don’t even know who they sending to, they just “select all”… Same goes with the “Maaf me” messages on big nights. I would suggest rather pick up the phone and call.”

Farzana Bismillah Bhamjee: “Nay, a Few weeks back I received a JM message which was in comparison with dental tream…yup dental treatment.”

Mumtaz Moosa Saley: “LOL”

Waseem Koor: “Nay. But I would prefer to accept the gesture and whatever little good intention their might have been from the broadcaster rather than disregard the exercise completely”.

(PS I also have a problem with the term “JM”, because when you say the letters it sounds like the war cry of another religion. Well, almost.)

Tips on How to deal with Jummah Mubaraktitis:

• Ask a family member to hide your phone and then try to find it. Hopefully they’ll hide it somewhere good and you’ll give up searching, and the next morning your phone will appear under your pillow.

• Try to cut down. If you send bc’s every week, send every second week. If you send to everyone, send to less people.

• Create a Jumma Mubaraktitis Group on bbm or whatsapp, thereby those with Jumma Mubaraktitis can send bc’s to each other only, whilst everyone else is spared the ‘spiritual’ spam.

• Go cold turkey and just stop bc’ing everyone altogether. People will be happy to see you instead of saying: “oh there’s BC Baboo or BC Begum”

  This is a topic that has split opinion…How do you feel on the topic, What are your views?

Interact with the author on @ejaz_k 

note:

*This statistic has been sucked out of the warm, summer air.