Islam

Eid

Bismillah hir rahmanir raheem

Assalamualaikum my wonderful brothers and sisters! How are you all? Hope you're doing well inshallah! Allhamduillah my week went great! How about urs?

I have done a chapter on celebrations before but this time i want to go in-depth.

There are two Eids celebrated in Islam and both follow major acts of worship.  The first is Eid al-Fitr which follows Ramadan and the second is Eid al-Adha which follows the Hajj.  In order to understand the importance of each holiday an understanding of the act of worship that precedes it is also necessary so I will explain the importance of the worship and then the holiday that follows.

Ramadan is an entire month during which Muslims focus on purifying themselves, getting closer to God, and growing in their knowledge/faith.  During Ramadan Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.  This fasting includes refraining from food, drink, sexual intercourse, bad language, and bad behavior.  Muslims generally read an entire chapter of the Qur'an each day (it has 30 chapters) so they read the entire book in one month.  It is often compared to being a mini boot-camp in which we arm ourselves with knowledge by reading the Qur'an and fit ourselves physically fit but modifying our diet, increasing our good deeds, and committing more and greater acts of worship.  By fasting we become more sympathetic to those less fortunate than ourselves because we feel what it is like to go without food or drink, we feel what it's like to be without.  In turn this should cause us to be more generous and seek to alleviate hunger amongst the poor.  It also helps to bring us together with family, friends, and neighbors as we break our fasts together.  It brings us closer as a community and to God by offering more worship such as taraweyah prayers (extra prayer services offered nightly in Ramadan).

After such an extensive training session a celebration is only logical.  This is where Eid al-Fitr (the Festival/Holiday of Breaking Fast) comes in.  It is a celebration which lasts 3 days and celebrates the successful completion of Ramadan and the newly renewed spiritual cleansing and connection.  This particular Eid is also associated with sweets and some call it the Sugar Festival or Sweet Festival.  Sweets of various kinds are a common feature of this Eid.  There are many different ways in which people celebrate the Eid but in general they all go in the morning to pray the special Eid prayer. On the way there and while waiting for the prayer session to start it is common to recite the Eid Takbir like this:

Then after praying people generally have a feast of sorts with their families and or friends.  It is a typical time to travel to family's homes and visit.  Typical foods vary by country/region.  In the Middle East it is common to buy new clothes for the Eid and children often recieve Eidia (pronounced pretty much like idea) which is money.  Eidia is recieved from family and friends but generally comes from an adult to child.  Gifts between adults are rare and actual gifts from child to adult are almost non-existant.  Kids use the money to buy toys and sweets.  Practices vary around the world quite a bit.  For example in China it's common for families to go visit the graves of their ancestors (a practice which seems to have developed out of the strong Chinese cultural reverence of Ancestors).  In the US, Canada, Australia, UK it is often more common to give children gifts as opposed to money (to compare with strong Christian gifting practices such as Christmas common in those areas) it is also increasingly common to make Eid goody bags with little trinkets, party favors, stickers, temporary tattoo's, and candy to hand out to children after the Eid prayer and gifts between adults or from child to adult are more common.  So exact practices and traditions have a great deal of variation around the world often influenced by dominant local cultural practices.  It is also common to go to amusement parks/carnivals/circuses in many places although in the West this is more common than in many other countries probably because immigrants and subsequent generations do not have very large extended families to visit so they spend more time going out as smaller familial groups and because of the often minority status of their holidays and the abundance of Christian holiday commercialization they often feel the need to make Eid's "extra special" to keep kids interested.