FestivalIslamic
Eid al-Fitr
No rule yet
Nobody has written a rule for this observance yet, so the calendar does not put it on a day. A name with a made-up date beside it would be worse than a name on its own.
In short
Eid al-Fitr is the festival that closes the fasting month of Ramadan. Ramadan is a period in which adult Muslims who are able abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset while giving special attention to prayer, self-control, charity and the Qur’an.
The story
Eid al-Fitr is the festival that closes the fasting month of Ramadan. Ramadan is a period in which adult Muslims who are able abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset while giving special attention to prayer, self-control, charity and the Qur’an. Eid begins when the next lunar month, Shawwal, is established. Before the congregational prayer, Muslims give Zakat al-Fitr, a prescribed charitable gift intended to help people in need share in the celebration. On the morning of Eid, people bathe, dress well, gather for special prayer and exchange greetings. Homes then fill with visits, meals and sweets; in South Asia, dishes such as seviyan are especially associated with the day. The festival is joyful, but its joy grows out of a month of discipline: it celebrates gratitude to God for completing Ramadan and turns private fasting into renewed bonds of generosity, family and community.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Why it matters
Eid al-Fitr is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.
What people do
The Eid prayer in congregation in the morning, in a ground or a mosque, and zakat al-fitr given before it so that everyone can keep the day. New clothes, visiting, and sheer khurma in most Indian houses. In Ahmedabad and Surat the markets stay open through the last nights of Ramadan for it.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Told differently elsewhere
The date depends on the sighting of the crescent, so it can differ by a day between countries and even between mosques in one city. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey and the Indian subcontinent do not always agree, and a printed calendar is an estimate until the moon is seen.
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