Weekly holiday

By Khondaker Ali Imam Mohammadpur, Dhaka
4 March 2005, 18:00 PM
The government is reviewing a proposal on two weekly holidays- Friday and Saturday. My humble question is, if there are two weekly holidays, why that shouldn't be Saturday and Sunday, and if there's only one day why it is not Sunday instead of Friday. We lose one full day of communication with our overseas clients, and Saturday and Sunday being their holidays makes it three. This matter is known to all and the decision makers are aware that many Muslim countries have Sunday as their holiday.

Now, my objection about Friday being the holiday is for a completely different reason. And it's related to the religion, just the opposite way. We have only one holiday and all our personal works need to be done on that day. A lot many times it happened that I was on my way to some place and thus missed the Jumma prayer. A huge number of people travel on this particular day and a lot many among them face this problem and miss the prayer, despite having all the sincere willingness to attend it.

If religion is the reason for declaring Friday as holiday, then religion could be the reason for changing it. I just can't imagine that someone who is used to offer his prayers abstains from doing it only because it doesn't fall in the weekly holiday!!