Coronavirus: British Muslim raises £90,000 for charity as part of Ramadan pledge

Dabirul Islam Choudhury pledged to walk 100 laps of his garden for the victims of Covid-19

General view of Oxford Street, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), London, Britain, May 7, 2020. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

London's famous Oxford Street is empty amid the coronavirus crisis. Reuters.

May 07, 2020

A 100-year-old British Muslim has raised nearly £90,000 for charity as part of a pledge to walk 100 laps of his 80-metre garden during Ramadan.

Dabirul Islam Choudhury reached his initial target of £1,000 (Dh4,541/US$1,236) only a few hours after starting his walk on April 26.

Mr Choudhury is raising money for the Ramadan Family Commitment organised by Channel S, a TV channel for the Bangladeshi community in the UK.

The funds will be distributed to victims of the coronavirus in the UK, Bangladesh and elsewhere.

This is Dabirul Islam Choudhury.

He's 100 years old.

Just like Captain Tom Moore, he's raising money for coronavirus relief by walking laps in his garden.

What's remarkable isn't that he's already raised £70,000.

It's that he's done it while fasting during #Ramadan pic.twitter.com/Frahnjk4cA
— Muhammad Lila (@MuhammadLila) May 6, 2020

Mr Choudhury’s Ramadan pledge follows the achievement of Col Tom Moore, 99, the British Second World War veteran who raised £32 million for the UK’s health service.

Mr Choudhury said he felt "very good, excellent" during the walk.

"We should help each other. This is why I wish to salute Tom," he said.

A Saudi man enters a new self-sterilisation gate at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Reuters

Mr Choudhury's son told the BBC there were no concerns about his father's energy levels.

“When we started, we started at a small pace but he’s been increasing the number of laps he’s doing,” Atique Choudhury said.

"The problem we have is that we have to try to stop him because he wants to carry on."

His father has been in isolation for a little over two months in East London.

TOPSHOT - Young women wearing facemasks and traditional costumes of Song dynasty and Tang dynasty are seated on a bench in a park next to the East Lake in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on May 17, 2020. Authorities in the pandemic ground zero of Wuhan have ordered mass COVID-19 testing for all 11 million residents after a new cluster of cases emerged over the weekend. / AFP / Hector RETAMAL

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Mr Choudhary was born on January 1, 1920, in British Assam, which would eventually become a part of East Pakistan.

In 1971, it became the independent state of Bangladesh.

In 1957 Mr Choudhury moved to London to study English literature at university and would eventually settle down in St Albans as a community leader raising money to support the independence of Pakistan.

His Just Giving page says: “More than half a billion people will be pushed into poverty unless immediate action is taken.

"The people of Bangladesh and Third World countries will suffer the most. Children and vulnerable families will suffer from extreme hunger.”