Make Eid, Not War
Ramadan is a celebration of togetherness and tolerance, so let's break out the Eid sweets and put away the bitterness for good
The best Eids are those you experience as a child. You are elated with tingles of excitement which send shivers of pleasure and anticipation through you. That inner excitement as Eid approaches never disappears because in its essence Eid is a very simple matter. You have fasted all month, suffered headaches and growling stomachs, re-arranged the routine of daily life, read more Qur'an than in the whole year most probably, tried your best to be nice to friends and family, and reflected on your own life and where it is going. You have been working hard, physically and spiritually and so the joy of Eid is simple because it is a celebration of an achievement that looks daunting and unachievable. The joy is pure because the task was undertaken in order to get closer to the Divine. Eid is exciting because it celebrates renewal, refreshment and rejuvenation.
The physical and spiritual stretch has been enormous and as the month draws to its finale, you feel both exhausted and elated. It is the triumph of the achievement of spirit over body that makes Eid such an amazing event. As a community we experience more togetherness and unity than at any other time during Ramadan: we've all been in it together. Suddenly there is an explosion of love and trust. Until night before Eid. And then our spiritual and community synchronicity fizzles away under the weight of disagreement about the moonsighting.
After a month of tolerance and understanding our togetherness vanishes oh-so-suddenly. Is it sapped by the multitude of phone calls round the world to establish if a sliver of crescent has been spotted? Is it the plethora of text messages that ratchet up our bills to the mobile network companies? Is it the uncertainty of whether to cook Eid breakfast or not?
Ramadan is about unity of spirit. We reject the physical so we can concentrate on our connections as souls. As with hajj, when we fast, the outer is irrelevant. Each human being we come across who is in this state of worship is a beautiful thing for us to appreciate. Ramadan is the epitome of love, peace and goodwill to humanity. We know that "Allah cannot be contained anywhere in the universe except in the heart of the believer", and "there are as many ways to know Allah as there are human beings". Yet we insist on squabbling over our differences whether they be about Eid, the specifics of how to pray or do wudhu, what time the fast breaks, or how long or short out trousers, beards or headscarves should be.
We then approach the final days when Eid is almost upon us, and as soon as we see the exit gates back into the dunya, the spirit of unity that we worked so hard to cultivate is lost. Worse still, we we take pleasure in returning to the intolerant bickering like an ex-smoker returning to his beloved cigarettes. Was the peace, harmony and unity of Ramadan so transient and painful that we longed to return to the disagreements and divisive behaviours that we experience all year round?
If so, then it reveals more about us as a Muslim community than we might like to admit. If we had truly learnt to be as happy for our brothers and sisters as we are for ourselves, and if we had internalised the notion that we must celebrate difference, then we would not fall out over Eid the very second - and yes, it is the very single second - that Ramadan ends.
If others are celebrating Eid before us, we should be joyful for them. They have reached their triumphant end. But we too have joy, for we are blessed enough to have an additional day of Ramadan. Who would wish to pass up even a single minute of this month? If we are celebrating Eid before others, then what better blessing than to prepare the way for those who are still to come and join us to start our fresh journey into the year? It's Eid, let's relax and chill out. We managed to keep it together under the physical duress of Ramadan, let's not lose it over deciding which day is Eid, and then return to the mire of un-ending disputes the year-round. The Prophet says that any day that is better than the previous one is a day of Eid for the believer, so why not make it Eid every day?
On a more practical note, if we celebrate all of our Eids together, then we can have up to three days of festivities, joy and of course highly delicious and calorific sweets. Instead of being stingy and tightening our belts towards Eid, let us be joyful, generous and above all happy enough spend a trio of exuberant days celebrating not only the completion of Ramadan, but also the immense achievement of learning to accept, support and celebrate our differences.
This article was published in The Muslim News
The best Eids are those you experience as a child. You are elated with tingles of excitement which send shivers of pleasure and anticipation through you. That inner excitement as Eid approaches never disappears because in its essence Eid is a very simple matter. You have fasted all month, suffered headaches and growling stomachs, re-arranged the routine of daily life, read more Qur'an than in the whole year most probably, tried your best to be nice to friends and family, and reflected on your own life and where it is going. You have been working hard, physically and spiritually and so the joy of Eid is simple because it is a celebration of an achievement that looks daunting and unachievable. The joy is pure because the task was undertaken in order to get closer to the Divine. Eid is exciting because it celebrates renewal, refreshment and rejuvenation.
The physical and spiritual stretch has been enormous and as the month draws to its finale, you feel both exhausted and elated. It is the triumph of the achievement of spirit over body that makes Eid such an amazing event. As a community we experience more togetherness and unity than at any other time during Ramadan: we've all been in it together. Suddenly there is an explosion of love and trust. Until night before Eid. And then our spiritual and community synchronicity fizzles away under the weight of disagreement about the moonsighting.
After a month of tolerance and understanding our togetherness vanishes oh-so-suddenly. Is it sapped by the multitude of phone calls round the world to establish if a sliver of crescent has been spotted? Is it the plethora of text messages that ratchet up our bills to the mobile network companies? Is it the uncertainty of whether to cook Eid breakfast or not?
Ramadan is about unity of spirit. We reject the physical so we can concentrate on our connections as souls. As with hajj, when we fast, the outer is irrelevant. Each human being we come across who is in this state of worship is a beautiful thing for us to appreciate. Ramadan is the epitome of love, peace and goodwill to humanity. We know that "Allah cannot be contained anywhere in the universe except in the heart of the believer", and "there are as many ways to know Allah as there are human beings". Yet we insist on squabbling over our differences whether they be about Eid, the specifics of how to pray or do wudhu, what time the fast breaks, or how long or short out trousers, beards or headscarves should be.
We then approach the final days when Eid is almost upon us, and as soon as we see the exit gates back into the dunya, the spirit of unity that we worked so hard to cultivate is lost. Worse still, we we take pleasure in returning to the intolerant bickering like an ex-smoker returning to his beloved cigarettes. Was the peace, harmony and unity of Ramadan so transient and painful that we longed to return to the disagreements and divisive behaviours that we experience all year round?
If so, then it reveals more about us as a Muslim community than we might like to admit. If we had truly learnt to be as happy for our brothers and sisters as we are for ourselves, and if we had internalised the notion that we must celebrate difference, then we would not fall out over Eid the very second - and yes, it is the very single second - that Ramadan ends.
If others are celebrating Eid before us, we should be joyful for them. They have reached their triumphant end. But we too have joy, for we are blessed enough to have an additional day of Ramadan. Who would wish to pass up even a single minute of this month? If we are celebrating Eid before others, then what better blessing than to prepare the way for those who are still to come and join us to start our fresh journey into the year? It's Eid, let's relax and chill out. We managed to keep it together under the physical duress of Ramadan, let's not lose it over deciding which day is Eid, and then return to the mire of un-ending disputes the year-round. The Prophet says that any day that is better than the previous one is a day of Eid for the believer, so why not make it Eid every day?
On a more practical note, if we celebrate all of our Eids together, then we can have up to three days of festivities, joy and of course highly delicious and calorific sweets. Instead of being stingy and tightening our belts towards Eid, let us be joyful, generous and above all happy enough spend a trio of exuberant days celebrating not only the completion of Ramadan, but also the immense achievement of learning to accept, support and celebrate our differences.
This article was published in The Muslim News
Labels: eid, faith, Hajj, Islam, Muslim, Muslim News, religion, spirit21
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 20:12
5 Comments:
Assalamau alaikum,
I sometimes read your blog. Its very interesting. Congratulations on the best blog award. I am part of a group called Muslim Voters USA (www.muslimvotersusa.com). We have prepared a voter registration kit that can be used to hold a voter registration drive in your community or mosque. Can you please advertise this kit on your facebook group and send it out in your email list. The kit is non-partisan and available to anyone at www.muslimvotersusa.com.
If you want to register yourself and/or your parents you can go to: http://www.rockthevote.com/.
The kit contains the following:
1. A brief guide to what a masjid can and cannot do in an election.
2. Step by step guide on how to register Muslims to vote in your state
3. State Registration Info: (Both Detailed and Summarized Information)
4. Some sample voter registration forms
5. Absentee ballot registration forms
6. Posters to advertise your voter registration drive.
7. Sample posters to advertise voting.
8. An outline of a Juma’ah khutbah that encourages voting.
There are also other resources that can be used. I hope that you can publicize these:
INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS:
By joining these groups you can more effectively register voters, share resources with others doing the same things. Soon they will be connected with tools to enable us to call Muslims to encourage them to register and vote.
- Go to muslims for obama 2008 (www.mafo2008.com) and join the Muslim voters USA group. As a member of that group you can advertise your drive to others in your area.
- Go to www.muslimrepublicans.net and publicize your drive.
- Join the following Facebook Groups: Muslim Democrats, and Muslim Republicans
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Coordinate your efforts with CAIR and your local mosques.
Use www.muslimdemocrats.net to find muslims in your area to contact.
Go to www.muslimvotersusa.com to obtain the kit. If you have any difficult downloading it, please let me know and I will email the kit as an attachment. Please send this to anybody you think can register voters.
The Ohio election in 2000 was decided by the same number of people as there are muslims in that state.
We can make a difference.
Thank you,
Umar Khokhar
Assalamau alaikum,
I sometimes read your blog. Its very interesting. Congratulations on the best blog award. I am part of a group called Muslim Voters USA (www.muslimvotersusa.com). We have prepared a voter registration kit that can be used to hold a voter registration drive in your community or mosque. Can you please advertise this kit on your facebook group and send it out in your email list. The kit is non-partisan and available to anyone at www.muslimvotersusa.com.
If you want to register yourself and/or your parents you can go to: http://www.rockthevote.com/.
The kit contains the following:
1. A brief guide to what a masjid can and cannot do in an election.
2. Step by step guide on how to register Muslims to vote in your state
3. State Registration Info: (Both Detailed and Summarized Information)
4. Some sample voter registration forms
5. Absentee ballot registration forms
6. Posters to advertise your voter registration drive.
7. Sample posters to advertise voting.
8. An outline of a Juma’ah khutbah that encourages voting.
There are also other resources that can be used. I hope that you can publicize these:
INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS:
By joining these groups you can more effectively register voters, share resources with others doing the same things. Soon they will be connected with tools to enable us to call Muslims to encourage them to register and vote.
- Go to muslims for obama 2008 (www.mafo2008.com) and join the Muslim voters USA group. As a member of that group you can advertise your drive to others in your area.
- Go to www.muslimrepublicans.net and publicize your drive.
- Join the following Facebook Groups: Muslim Democrats, and Muslim Republicans
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Coordinate your efforts with CAIR and your local mosques.
Use www.muslimdemocrats.net to find muslims in your area to contact.
Go to www.muslimvotersusa.com to obtain the kit. If you have any difficult downloading it, please let me know and I will email the kit as an attachment. Please send this to anybody you think can register voters.
The Ohio election in 2000 was decided by the same number of people as there are muslims in that state.
We can make a difference.
Thank you,
Umar Khokhar
This article is utter drivel. Are you a foreign student who is stuck in a culture/identity crisis?
I have read blog articles from 13 year children that make more sense than this and get to point.
I suggest a course in writing from the Open University.
Good luck.
Assalamu'alaykum
Subhanallah, I miss ramadhan:'
thank's a lot ya uhti
Barokallahufik:)
assalamualaikum
I heard your blog from news.
and I wanna see it.
well,I just wanna say " Happy Idul Fitri Day",it's late,i know,but it's better than not to say it,lol.
ied?idul?idul is how indonesian say it.
nice to know u^^
salam.
Post a Comment
<< Home