Coronation Street fans praised references to the holy month of Ramadan in Friday night's episode of the ITV soap. Viewers applauded Corrie for including mentions of the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.
During Ramadan Muslims have fasted from sunrise to sundown for a month. On Monday they will celebrate Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan.
In Friday's hour-long episode Imran Habeeb invited his former brother-in-law Zeedan Nazir to his stag do at Speed Daal restaurant, owned by Zeedan's gran Yazmeen and sister Alya, saying: "It's going to be after sundown so you can break your fast at Speed Daal."
READ MORE:
And at Speed Daal co-owner Alya told chef Stu Carpenter that as part of Eid she planned to cook up some extra food in the restaurant kitchen and share it out amongst the community. When Stu told Zeedan, who is estranged from his family, about the charity food event he wished he could help out too.
Fans took to Twitter to share their praise. @darkfate1967 said: "Loving #corrie tonight!! All this Friday prayers, Ramadan & charity meals. Great education thanks." And they added: "@itvcorrie think we need an open air prayer session on the cobbles. Now that really will be authentic."
@yorit1 said: "It’s great to see Alya back and I love that they remembered it’s Ramadan,", @bredrew2 said with an impressed gif: "They're mentioning Ramadan with the Nazirs today" and @iamagiraffe messaged: "Nice reference to Ramadan on #Corrie. It's nice to learn about other cultures and religion and to make it more 'mainstream'."
But other soap watchers grumbled that the references were 'a bit late.' The Conversation Street Podcast said: "Ramadan started 1 April but I guess #Corrie just remembered…"
@GHovhanesian replied: "I was thinking this too." And @Ali89_91 said: "I was just thinking the same, they were bit late mentioning it."
On Monday there's drama when Stu asks Ken Barlow to give him a lift to the wholesalers. At the wholesalers an officer accuses Stu of an attempted break-in and assumes Ken to be the getaway driver.
As Stu leaves the police station, the officer asserts that he’s had a lucky escape given his track record. Yasmeen tells Stu how disappointed she is and it would be best if found somewhere else to stay the night.
Later Stu thanks Ken for letting him stay the night and he serenades Yasmeen with a song by way of an apology. But his good intentions are shunned as Yasmeen orders him to leave.
Stu, who was previously homeless, was given a home at 6 Coronation Street with Yasmeen and a job at Speed Daal after he was wrongly accused of starting a fire at Speed Daal last year.
Yasmeen felt beholden to him for her mistrust and offered him a room. She changed her mind suddenly when jovial comments he made reminded her of her coercive controlling late husband Geoff.
She made it up to him by giving him trial shifts at Speed Daal when it reopened. And as her trust grew back she repeated her offer to become her lodger.
He moved into the house in January and was taken on full time at the restaurant. And Stu has become a great support to Yasmeen after she became estranged from Zeedan when she found out that he had been laundering father-in-law Hashim Elamin's dirty money through her business.
