The Invitation encourages the Muslim community to take the Covid vaccine

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc globally and caused 1.5 million deaths including 63,000 British citizens. A huge loss of life. Covid-19 is a serious infection, a scourge. There is no doubt about its severity and danger to life. Considering this epidemiology and what we witnessed in the past ten months, any treatment must be hailed as a valuable achievement.

A vaccine has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA). This is an independent agency responsible for ensuring medicines are acceptable and safe. It is regarded as the most credible and trustworthy agency of its kind in the world.

Vaccination is a well-established protective procedure against infectious diseases, most of us will have had TB, MMR vaccines when we were children, many elderlies get flu vaccines every year in the winter to protect them against flu, you have to take the Meningitis vaccine to go to Hajj. Vaccination has played a key role in the eradication of some deadly diseases like polio and smallpox. We believe that Allah is the Creator, the Kind and Caring Lord. He is the Shafi, the Healer, a believer always prays, “when I am ill, He will heal me” (Al-Shuara: 80). The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: “Allah has created a medicine for every illness.”

Imams all over the UK have been encouraged to deliver sermons encouraging their communities to take the covid vaccine as there has been a lot of scepticism regarding the vaccine within the Muslim community.

Dr. Amjad Aziz, chairman of the Nottingham council of mosques said: “The vaccine is Halal and there has been a collective Fatwa about that, one must not believe the conspiracy theories around it.

“The statistics show that BAME communities are under a higher risk of contracting the virus and hence we must do everything to protect ourselves and our communities.

“Hadith says if someone is sick they must go for the cure and if they don’t that is a huge sin and mounts as self harm which is Haram.”

The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was tested on 44,000 people with very few side effects. The British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA) is a respectable, professional and representative body of Muslim doctors and health professionals (has a membership of 4,000), they are also recommending it. BIMA has endorsed the vaccine as safe and encouraged Muslims to get inoculated. They presented a paper, which shows the precautions that have been taken in formulating and testing its safety. After speaking to several scholars here and abroad the British Fatwa Council is urging Muslims to take the Covid-19 vaccine.

Refusing treatment and exposing oneself to a life-threatening disease is tantamount to suicide. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “whoever commits suicide will be punished with the same object in the hellfire” (Bukhari). Refusing to get vaccinated is endangering oneself and others. Therefore, we urge British Muslims to get vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.