Tens of thousands of Muslims Monday flocked to this small Bangladesh town for a mass prayer marking the end of a three-day annual congregation, Islam's second largest after the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The nearly 20-minute "Akheri Munajat" or final prayer, which heralded the close of the Biswa Ijtema congregation, drew an estimated 2.5 million followers, including 5,000 from 35 countries, on the sprawling bank of Turag river, 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from Dhaka.
The foreign pilgrims were mostly from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Libya, Pakistan, India, Kuwait, the United States and Britain, organizers said.
Moulana Zobaerul Hasan, son of the New Delhi-based late Amir of the World Tablig Jamaat, Moulana Enamul Hasan, led the prayers seeking devine blessings for world peace and Muslim solidarity.
His sermons in Arabic were translated simultaneously in English, Bengali, Hindi and Urdu languages.
As Hasan prayed, the Muslim devotees responded, saying "Allahuma Ameen" (God, please accept).
Bangladesh President Shahabuddin Ahmed, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia joined the prayer amid tight security under a large marquee on 160 acres (64 hectares) of land.
Army troops, government and voluntary agencies were on alert with medical services as police kept an eye on the congregation.
Witnesses said the Muslim participants began to disperse and return to their homes soon after the final prayer, jamming trains, buses and boats.
Newspapers reported at least five of the elderly devotees taking part in the congregation had died of cold with some 70 other being treated in make-shift clinics.
Earlier, up to 31 Bangladeshis were reported to have died of cold in the worst-hit northern Bangladesh districts where chilly winter weather has continued for the past five days.
The three-day event featured recitations from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, hymns and sermons by Islamic scholars and leaders and daily mass prayers, relayed throughout the venue and neighborhood by a network of hundreds of microphones.
The 34th congregation, held last year from January 29, drew more than two million devotees, according to organizers and media estimates.
The gathering is organized by the Tablig Jamaat movement which was launched some four decades ago in India as a low-key new religious movement to encourage Muslims to follow and practice Islamic tenants in day to day life.
The venue was shifted in the early 1960s to the Kakrail Mosque in downtown Dhaka, the then capital of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
With the number of participants swelling, the venue was later shifted to this government-owned open land.
But the headquarters continues to be the mosque from where the annual gatherings are planned and teams of devotees from home and abroad are dispatched to spread the movement -- TONGI, Bangladesh (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
