The US president Donald Trump said on Saturday that he hopes US Muslims will adhere to the same social distancing during Ramadan as Christians at Easter.
His answer came when asked to defend a retweet of a conservative commentator who seemed to question whether Muslims would be treated with the same severity as Christians who broke social distancing rules.
Ramadan, which begins at sunset on Thursday, falls a week and a half after Easter, when some Christians bucked public health regulations to attend illicit services.
When asked whether he thought imams would refuse to follow social distancing orders, Trump responded: “No, I don’t think that at all.”
“I am somebody that believes in faith. And it matters not what your faith is. But our politicians seem to treat different faiths very differently.”
Trump has been accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the past and one of his first acts upon entering office was to ban travelers from several Muslim-majority countries.
More than 700,000 cases of Coronavirus have been reported in the United States, forcing religious communities across the country to shutter their doors.
The Islamic Society of North America, alongside Muslim medical experts, has urged the suspension of group prayers, among other gatherings.
Jewish Americans were likewise forced to turn traditional Passover seders into virtual affairs when the eight-day holiday began at sundown on April 8.
