Tag Archives: Pakistan

Festivals of India: Eid al-Fitr

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Yesterday marked the last day of the fasting month of Ramadan and today, billions of Muslims worldwide celebrate the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

Eid al-Fitr or the Feast of Breaking the Fast, is the earlier of the two official holidays celebrated within Islam, with the other being Eid al-Adha. This festival marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan and falls on the first day of Shawwal in the Islamic calendar. Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, the date of the festival changes every year. The start of the Hijri month varies based on when the new moon is sighted by local religious authorities. Also known as Ramzan Eid, the Lesser Eid, or simply Eid, Eid al-Fitr commemorates the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. An occasion for special prayers, family visits, gift-giving and charity, it takes place over one to three days, beginning on the first day of Shawwal, the 10th month in the Islamic calendar and is a day of joy as families get together after a month of austerity and fasting.

One of the five pillars of Islam, during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan, nearly all Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sundown and abstain from smoking, drinking, including water and sexual activity during the daylight hours. Ramadan is the month in which the Prophet Muhammad received the teachings of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, as a guide for mankind and a means for judging between right and wrong. Fasting during Ramadan, known as Sawm, is one of the five pillars, the basic principles that are essential to the Islamic faith. Muslims observe Ramadan by reading the Quran, emphasising charity or zakat, abstaining from food and drink during daylight hours, and concentrating on prayer and study to increase their taqwa, or sacred consciousness. Fasting during Ramadan takes people out of their normal lifestyles and requires them to engage in solemn contemplation and examination. Experiencing hunger and thirst is supposed to heighten people’s awareness of the sufferings of the poor, and gain a greater appreciation for what they have.

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After a month of prayer, devotion and self-control, Muslims celebrate the accomplishment of their sacred duties during Ramadan with the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, or the Festival of Breaking the Fast. The festival is a national holiday in many countries with large Muslim populations. Celebrations of Eid al-Fitr typically last for three days, one day fewer than those of Eid al-Adha. For this reason, Eid al-Fitr is often called Lesser or Smaller Eid. Eid al-Adha, known as Greater Eid, is seen as the more important holiday of the two.

Eid al-Fitr was originated by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to certain traditions, these festivals were initiated in Medina after the migration of Muhammad from Mecca. Anas, a well-known companion of the Islamic prophet, narrated that, when Muhammad arrived in Medina, he found people celebrating two specific days in which they entertained themselves with recreation and merriment. At this, Muhammad remarked that Allah had fixed two days of festivity: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

During Eid al-Fitr, Muslims take part in special morning prayers, greet each other with formal embraces and offer each other greetings of Eid Mubarak or Have a blessed Eid. They gather with family and friends, give games and gifts to children and prepare and eat special meals, including sweet dishes like baklava or Turkish delight in Turkey, date-filled pastries and cookies in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and bint al sahn or honey cake in Yemen.

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Another of the five pillars of Islam is Zakat or giving to those in need. Muslims often prepare for Eid al-Fitr by giving money to charity so that less fortunate families can enjoy the festivities as well. In addition to charity, Muslims are also encouraged to give and seek forgiveness during Eid al-Fitr and look forward to the opportunity to fast again during Ramadan the following year.

Traditionally, Eid al-Fitr begins at sunset on the night of the first sighting of the crescent moon. If the moon is not observed immediately after the 29th day of the previous lunar month, either because clouds block its view or because the western sky is still too bright when the moon sets, then the holiday is celebrated the following day. Eid is celebrated for one to three days, depending on the country and it is forbidden to fast on the day of Eid, and a specific prayer is nominated for this day. As an obligatory act of charity, money is paid to the poor and the needy known as Zakat-ul-Fitr before performing the Eid prayer which is performed by the congregation in an open area such as a field, a community centre or a mosque. No call to prayer is given for this Eid prayer, and it consists of only two units of prayer, with a variable amount of Takbirs and other prayer elements depending on the branch of Islam observed. The Eid prayer is followed by the sermon and then a supplication asking for Allah’s forgiveness, mercy, peace and blessings for all living beings across the world. The sermon also instructs Muslims as to the performance of rituals of Eid, such as the zakat. The sermon of Eid takes place after the Eid prayer, unlike the Friday prayer which comes first before prayer with some imams believing that listening to the sermon at Eid is optional. After the prayers, Muslims visit their relatives, friends, and acquaintances or hold large communal celebrations in homes, community centres, or rented halls.

In India, Eid is a public holiday and the holiday begins after the sighting of the new moon on Chand Raat. On that evening, people head to markets to finish their shopping for Eid, for clothing and gifts and begin preparing their food for the next day. Traditional Eid food often includes biriyani, sheer khurma, and sevvaiyyan, a dish of fine, toasted sweet vermicelli noodles with milk and dried fruit, among other regionally-specific dishes. Women and girls also put henna in each others’ hands and the next morning, Muslims go to their local mosque for the Eid Namaz and give Eid zakat before returning home. Afterwards, children are given Eidi or cash gifts and friends and relatives visit each other’s homes to eat and celebrate. In Pakistan, this Eid is also known as Chhoti or Lesser Eid and is celebrated more or less like in India. At home, family members enjoy a special Eid breakfast with various types of sweets and desserts, including Kheer and the traditional dessert Sheer Khurma, which is made of vermicelli, milk, butter, dry fruits, and dates. Children also get cash gifts known as Eidi with the State Bank of Pakistan issuing fresh currency notes every year for this purpose.

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In Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, Eid is more commonly known as Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Hari Raya Idul Fitri, Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Fitrah or Hari Lebaran where Hari Raya means a celebration day. It is customary for workers in the city to return to their home town to celebrate with their families and to ask forgiveness from parents, in-laws, and other elders. This is known in Malaysia as balik kampung or homecoming. The night before Hari Raya is filled with the sounds of takbir in the mosques or musallahs. In many parts of Malaysia, especially in the rural areas, pelita, panjut or lampu colok which are oil lamps, similar to tiki torches are lit up and placed outside and around homes. Special dishes like ketupat, rendang, lemang which is a type of glutinous rice cooked in bamboo and other Malay delicacies such as various kuih-muih are served during this day. It is common to greet people with Salam Aidilfitri or Selamat Hari Raya which means Happy Eid. Muslims also greet one another with maaf zahir dan batin, which asks to forgive their physical and emotional wrongdoings. In Singapore and Malaysia, especially in the major cities, people take turns to set aside a time for an open house when they stay at home to receive and entertain neighbours, family and other visitors. It is common to see non-Muslims made welcome during Eid at these open houses. Children are given token sums of money, also known as Duit Raya, from their parents or elders.

To everyone celebrating Eid, Eid Mubarak and Selamat Hari Raya Adilfitri!

In My Hands Today…

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The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories – Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar

Nation-states often shape the boundaries of historical enquiry, and thus silence the very histories that have sutured nations to territorial states. “India” and “Pakistan” were drawn onto maps in the midst of Partition’s genocidal violence and one of the largest displacements of people in the twentieth century. Yet this historical specificity of decolonization on the very making of a nationalized cartography of modern South Asia has largely gone unexamined.

In this remarkable study based on more than two years of ethnographic and archival research, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar argues that the combined interventions of the two postcolonial states were enormously important in shaping these massive displacements. She examines the long, contentious, and ambivalent process of drawing political boundaries and making distinct nation-states in the midst of this historic chaos.

Zamindar crosses political and conceptual boundaries to bring together oral histories with north Indian Muslim families divided between the two cities of Delhi and Karachi with extensive archival research in previously unexamined Urdu newspapers and government records of India and Pakistan. She juxtaposes the experiences of ordinary people against the bureaucratic interventions of both postcolonial states to manage and control refugees and administer refugee property. As a result, she reveals the surprising history of the making of the western Indo-Pak border, one of the most highly surveillanced in the world, which came to be instituted in response to this refugee crisis, in order to construct national difference where it was the most blurred.

In particular, Zamindar examines the “Muslim question” at the heart of Partition. From the margins and silences of national histories, she draws out the resistance, bewilderment, and marginalization of north Indian Muslims as they came to be pushed out and divided by both emergent nation-states. It is here that Zamindar asks us to stretch our understanding of “Partition violence” to include this long, and in some sense ongoing, bureaucratic violence of postcolonial nationhood, and to place Partition at the heart of a twentieth century of border-making and nation-state formation.

In My Hands Today…

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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time – Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard

Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school.

Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools— especially for girls — that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth.

As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

In My Hands Today…

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Three Cups of Tea – Sarah L. Thomson, David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson

On the afternoon of September 2, 1993, Greg Mortenson realized that he had failed in his attempt to climb K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

But disappointment was the least of his problems. Emaciated, exhausted, thoroughly disoriented, and suffering from edema, his grip on life was loosening.

He was taken in and nursed back to health by the impoverished populace of a remote Pakistani village.

Grateful, he promised to return someday to build them a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and the story of how one man changed the world, one school at a time.

In My Hands Today…

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Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition – Nisid Hajari

Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody — it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi’s protégé and the political leader of India, believed Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand.

But in August 1946, exactly a year before Independence, Calcutta erupted in riots. A cycle of street-fighting — targeting Hindus, then Muslims, then Sikhs — spun out of control. As the summer of 1947 approached, all three groups were heavily armed and on edge, and the British rushed to leave.

Hell let loose. Trains carried Muslims west and Hindus east to their slaughter. Some of the most brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing in modern history erupted on both sides of the new border, searing a divide between India and Pakistan that remains a root cause of many evils. From jihadi terrorism to nuclear proliferation, the searing tale told in Midnight’s Furies explains all too many of the headlines we read today.