Crowds gather on a pilgrimage at the Kaaba, the birthplace of Prophet Mohammed, Mecca, July 1889. Devastating cholera outbreaks several times throughout the 19th century resulted in the suspension of pilgrimages, including Hajj in 1837 and 1846 [Hulton Archive/Getty Images]

Coronavirus affects Ramadan on an unprecedented scale, but it's not the primary time Muslim traditions have had to adapt.The coronavirus pandemic has forced drastic changes across the planet - many of us face unemployment, travel plans are canceled and public places are empty as some work from home, practice social distancing, and self-isolate.
As most countries enforced restrictions on movement to curb the spread of the novel virus, at one point it had been estimated 3 billion people were under some sort of lockdown.
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The coronavirus pandemic will see the world's Muslim population - about 2 billion people - observe the holy month of Ramadan in new ways, refraining from social gatherings to interrupt fasts, abandoning communal prayers, and even providing charity at a distance.In most Muslim-majority nations, mosques have closed and Friday prayers, which gather up to thousands of worshippers at a time, are suspended.
Umrah - a mini-pilgrimage that takes place year-round at the Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia was suspended indefinitely.
Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that Taraweeh, special Ramadan prayers at the Grand Mosque and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the Prophet Muhammad's mosque, in Medina, will happen, but with no public attendance.
Only mosque staff is expected to perform the nightly prayers, as recently reported.
These far-reaching steps are unusual within the 1400-year history of Islam, with no verifiable evidence to suggest mass gatherings are suspended on this scale during Ramadan.
But there are times when mass religious gatherings were partially or fully halted within the Muslim world.
"The closing of mosques or canceling mass gatherings ... went on repeatedly for various reasons," Mutaz Al-Khatib, professor at the research facility for Islamic Legislation and Ethics at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar, told Al Jazeera, explaining that wars, natural disasters like floods, and epidemics have previously halted religious events.
Here are some examples through history when Muslims have changed traditions amid critical circumstances.

05/04/2020 15:30 GMT — The first drug to treat COVID-19 gets emergency approval from the FDA

The FDA issued emergency authorization for the use of the antiviral drug redeliver to treat “severe” forms of COVID-19.

According to the FDA, patients with “severe disease” are those with “low blood oxygen levels or needing oxygen therapy or more intensive breathing support, such as a mechanical ventilator.”

Penny Ward, Visiting Professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, U.K., comments on the development, along with other experts.

She explains, “The FDA approved this product on the basis [of its] proven in vitro antiviral effect against SARS-CoV-2, animal data documenting in vivo efficacy against COVID-19 infection, and a clinical trial conducted by the National Institutes of Health in which receipt of remdesivir decreased the time taken to recover from COVID-19 and reduced mortality by ~30%.”

05/04/2020 14:00 GMT — COVID-19 still a ‘public health emergency of international concern,’ Emergency Committee tells WHO

The WHO director-general convened the third meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday, April 30.

The committee unanimously agreed that COVID-19 still represents a “public health emergency of international concern” and issued a list of guidelines for the WHO and other parties and states.

The recommendations for the WHO included working with “fragile states and vulnerable countries” that need additional support and liaising with key organizations to find the animal origin of the virus and identify the route of transmission to humans.

The committee also recommended that the WHO focus on supporting countries in an effort to manage the “unintended consequences of public health measures” such as the spike in gender-based violence and child neglect.

Furthermore, the committee advised the WHO to support governments in continuing to provide essential health services throughout the COVID-19 response period, which is likely to extend. These services include but are not limited to, vaccination, reproductive health care, mental health services, and care for vulnerable populations, such as older adults and children.

Finally, the committee asked the WHO to clarify testing strategies and help countries increase their testing capacities and update their travel and trade recommendations.

Under the terms of the filing, its main creditors are set to take control of the group in exchange for canceling debts of $1.65bn (£1.3bn).

They are also providing about $400m of fresh financing to keep J Crew's operations afloat.

Its 500 stores have been closed by the pandemic and some will not reopen.

However, the firm has not yet disclosed how many outlets will disappear.

Control of the group will now pass into the hands of Anchorage Capital Group, GSO Capital Partners, and Davidson Kempner Capital Management, which hold large amounts of its debt.

As well as J Crew, the group also owns denim clothing specialist Madewell, which it had planned to spin off as a separate entity before the outbreak of the virus.

J Crew chief executive Jan Singer described the move as a "comprehensive financial restructuring" aimed at allowing the business "to thrive for years to come".

"Throughout this process, we will continue to provide our customers with the exceptional merchandise and service they expect from us, and we will continue all day-to-day operations, albeit under these extraordinary Covid-19-related circumstances," she added.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said J Crew was profitable at the operating level, but its "crippling" long-term debt "sits on the company's balance sheet like a millstone around its neck".

He said that although the restructuring would give the firm breathing space, it had to address the perception of many shoppers that its clothes were "both boring and bad value for money".

He added: "This process gives the company a chance to survive. However, that survival is not just dependent on reduced debt; it requires a reinvention of the J Crew brand."

Even before the advent of coronavirus, big retailers were suffering in the US, with the rise of online shopping and the decline of shopping malls taking their toll.

Department store chains including Sears and JC Penney - long seen as bellwethers of US retail - have been struggling to survive in recent years, with clothing sales falling particularly sharply.

Sears had 700 stores across the US when it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018. Although it survived, it now has fewer than 200 outlets.

JC Penney has been ailing for some time. It used to have more than 1,000 locations but now has about 850.

On April 29, 2020, in a special column on the birth centenary celebration of the Father of Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman titled "The first year of Bangladesh: Bangabandhu's nation-building challenges", The Daily Star newspaper mentioned Mujib's statement on the need for foreign troops to immediately withdraw from Vietnam.

This was a snapshot of the friendly relations that the two countries shared and one of many milestones. The two countries have supported and stood side-by-side in the most difficult times in the cause of liberating and building countries.

The Vietnamese people are now celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Great Victory on April 30, 1975, the liberation of the South, the reunification of the country, and the 130th birthday of President Ho Chi Minh on May 19.

In the midst of this, over the last four months, the Covid-19 pandemic, which derived from the city of Wuhan in China, has spread like wildfire and raged in more than 200 countries and territories, with over three million cases of infection and 200,000 deaths.

The pandemic has caused a serious crisis in all socio-economic fields on a global scale, affecting the material and spiritual life of billions of people.

As a developing country that is globally-integrated, Vietnam has also been caught up in the epidemic spiral. From the beginning, when the disease was found to be at a high risk of widespread outbreak without a cure in the world, the country implemented the prevention and precaution campaigns much sooner than the World Health Organization's recommendations and warnings.

With the viewpoint of "Fighting epidemic like fighting against the enemy", the four-point guidelines of "On-site quarantine, on-site treatment, on-site facilities, on-site human resources" and the measures of "Proactive prevention - Early detection - Timely quarantine - Distinct zoning - Thorough defeat - Effective treatment" have helped Vietnam actively mobilize and arrange human and material resources to curb the spread of the virus.

Despite the limited medical facilities, the developing country with a population of nearly 100 million, has contained the deadly virus. There have been only 270 positive cases of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and no deaths until April 30.

There have been no new infections in the community for the last two weeks. Up till now, Vietnam has been well controlling the disease spread. This is the initial victory of the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic -- an invisible enemy.

The guidelines, views, and measures that have been implemented by the government and people of Vietnam are the lessons from the two recent resistance for national independence in general, and experiences from the Spring 1975 General Offensive and Uprising with the Victory on April 30, 1975, in particular.

Vietnam has been beginning a new phase of pandemic prevention, which is longer and more radical, together with socio-economic recovery to ensure people's adaptability in the continuous need to control the Covid-19. The pandemic is still complicated and unpredictable while the risk of outbreaks in the community is still very high.

Vietnam is implementing reasonable social distancing in line with the situation to create favorable conditions for goods circulation and resume production, businesses, and employment to stabilize people's lives.

Taking further precautions, the celebrations of the 45th anniversary of the country's reunification on April 30 and the 130th birthday of President Ho Chi Minh on May 19 is not being organized, despite the significance of these events in the lives of the Vietnamese people.

Like Vietnam, the Government and people of Bangladesh, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, are also experiencing hard times to curb and control the spread of the virus outbreak. With the tradition of fighting for independence as well as the lessons and experiences of 50 years of protecting, building, and developing the country, the people of Bangladesh will continue to win. Bangladeshi people will successfully control the pandemic, overcome socio-economic consequences, and continue Bangabandhu's dream of building a "Shonar Bangla".

Zombie movies have had a fascinating path to the mainstream. For decades, the creatures didn’t have much of a presence or definition outside Voodoo lore, radioactive humanoids, and the unforgettable art of E.C. comics. Zombies were scarcely used, and when they were, they were a pretty far cry from the cannibalistic flesh-hungry creatures of the undead we know and love today. Then a gentleman and pioneering filmmaker named George A. Romero came along and changed the game forever.

Romero didn’t invent the zombie as he’s often credited, but he did redefine it into a universal concept and establish the mold from which nearly every other zombie movie has sprung in the near-fifty years since Night of the Living Dead arrived in theaters. Throughout his career, he would continue to evolve the idea of the zombie film, first with his satirical Dawn of the Dead — a colorful, playful diversion from the dire drama of NOTLD, then with the divisive and highlight political Day of the Dead, and ultimately for the rest of the career. Never satisfied to repeat his previous work, Romero was always ahead of the curve, reacting to the world and cinematic landscapes around him to set new trends.

At the same time, an entire genre sprung up around Romero’s works, spanning the globe. Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci picking up the concept and running in his own direction with it, first with Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), then with his much more bizarre and experimental “Gates of Hell” trilogy. Filmmakers like Dan O’Bannon, Fred Dekker, and Stuart Gordon came along and toyed with the genre constructs; fans of Romero’s work who built off his foundation to further explore and expand what a zombie movie could be. Then, as quick as it exploded, the zombie went out of fashion. The creature had become a core concept in the genre, but outside of ongoing horror sequels (Return of the Living Dead, Zombie) low-budget fright flicks, and the occasional genre oddity (My Boyfriend’s Back, Cemetery Man and Dead Alive), the undead walked the earth no more.

Until the new millennium hit and then, hot dog, zombie business wasn’t just booming again, it was bigger than ever. The dominoes fell fast. First Danny Boyle‘s genre-evolving 28 Days Later set the stage, then came the Resident Evil adaption and Zack Snyder‘s Dawn of the Dead remake; big-budget studio films with nationwide theatrical rollouts. At the same time, indie zombie movies started getting good, pushing the boundaries of the conventional zombie mythology and using the narrative format to tell strange original stories.

Then Shaun of the Dead happened, and the genre shifted once again. Edgar Wright’s meta zombie comedy was a love letter to the genre, a razor-sharp deconstruction of the zombie classics, and a zombie classic in its own right. The next year, Romero released Land of the Dead in theaters, his first return to the genre in three decades. It was officially official. If the godfather of zombies was back, Zombies were definitely back. By the end of the early aughts, there were literally dozens of zombie movies a year (and more of them than ever had the word “zombie” in the title), and what was amazing was how many of them were worth watching; there were post-modern deconstructions (Cabin in the Woods, Zombieland), clever mutations to the DNA of the creatures (Mulberry Street, Pontypool), foreign films (Rec, The Horde), remakes of foreign films (Quarantine), and animated films (ParaNorman), not to mention all the straight-up entertaining low-budget shlock that was hitting DVD shelves en masse.

In the years since, the production of zombie movies has drastically slowed, especially at the studio level. There are still the genre oddities (Maggie), occasional breakouts (World War Z), and ongoing franchises (Resident Evil), but in terms of volume and often quality, the zombie movie has taken a backseat in recent years. Is it genre burnout? Did audiences tire of the undead the way they tired of Westerns? It’s possible but unlikely considering the success of one pop culture juggernaut; AMC’s The Walking Dead, which has triumphed in ratings since it debuted back in 2010. It’s likely the success of that series has a role to play in the way zombie movies have withered at the cinema, either because audiences are burnt out or zombie fans are getting their fix at home. Or maybe, it’s cultural. Romero created the modern zombie film during times of great social change in the world, they resurfaced at the height of the recession and war on terror in the early 2000s, and now that we’re in the midst of an era of international political turmoil, I’ve noticed some pretty good zombie movies popping up again.

Is another cinematic age of the undead upon us? Only time will tell, but for now, check out our staff picks for the best 21 best zombie movies of all time below.