COVID-19: A Turkish imam turns mosque into a supermarket offering free food to the poor

At the passageway of an Istanbul mosque, the racks generally held for the shoes of the reliable are stacked with pasta bundles, oil bottles, bread rolls - like a store. 

Yet, they aren't available to be purchased. Rather they are bound for the penniless, hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. 

The sign on the mosque's window asks any individual who can to leave something, and says those in need can take something. 

Abdulsamet Cakir, 33, imam of the Dedeman mosque in the Sariyer region, thought of this thought of connecting with the poor by means of the spot of love after Turkey suspended mass supplications in mosques until the danger of flare-up passes. 

Turkey's authentic loss of life from the infection currently remains at 2,259 after 119 additional passings were accounted for on Tuesday, and significant urban areas including Istanbul will be under lockdown for four days from Thursday. 

"After the suspension of mass supplications, I had a plan to restore our mosque by uniting wealthy individuals with the individuals out of luck," Cakir told AFP inside the mosque, where sacks of nourishment and tidying items were accumulated on the floor. 

The youthful imam, who takes the items from the floor and places them on the racks at the passageway, said he was propelled by a gift culture in the Ottoman time frame called "noble cause stone" - a little column stone raised at specific areas of the city to associate rich individuals with poor people. 

Predicament 

In this Ottoman framework planned for giving foundation in a noble way without culpable the penniless, individuals with means would leave whatever sum they needed in a depression on the highest point of the cause stone. 

The individuals who were in need would then take the sum they required and leave the rest for other people. 

"After the coronavirus pandemic, we have pondered what we can do to help our siblings out of luck," said Cakir, who might as of now help the poor in his neighborhood before the episode. 

"With the motivation from our precursors' 'good cause stone' culture, we chose to fill the racks in our mosque with the assistance from our siblings with implies," he included. 

Cakir drapes a rundown on the mass of the mosque where residents who need assistance compose their names and phone numbers. 

The imam later sends the rundown to neighborhood specialists who check whether the names are truly out of luck and his group at that point communicates something specific that they can visit the mosque and get whatever they need: eight things at greatest. 

"I am truly in critical need. My better half doesn't work. I used to clean houses yet since the infection, they do not call anymore," Guleser Ocak, 50, told AFP. 

"I composed my name on the rundown previously. I got a message today to get help," she said. "We are in a predicament." 

Social separating 

The mosque has been offering types of assistance for about fourteen days and connects with 120 individuals in need for each day. What's more, the rundown incorporates more than 900 individuals. 

A limit of two individuals wearing veils and gloves enter the mosque and take what they need, while others hold up outside, standing a couple of paces from one another. 

"We spread the administrations as the day progressed. We call 15 individuals for every 30 minutes, with the goal that we regard social separating and don't cause enormous lines," the imam said. 

"We are giving a valiant effort to support our sisters and siblings in the most ideal manner without culpable them," he included. 

The mosque doesn't acknowledge money gifts and rather gets help bundles. 

"Makers likewise give. A mill operator acquires flour, a dough puncher gets bread, a water merchant gets water," Cakir said. 

The mosque's racks are brimming with items sent from all over Turkey and even abroad. 

"Everybody does whatever they can to help individuals out of luck. For instance, a sibling who lives in France did internet shopping and guided the guide to our mosque," he said. 

"What the mosque is doing is incredibly bravo. Ramadan is coming," said Duygu Kesimoglu, 29, alluding to the Muslim fasting month starting this week. 

"I am tragically jobless, they don't utilize us in view of the coronavirus. No activity, no cash. This assistance is incredibly, acceptable," she said.