Idd Festival Of Muslims

Eid-ul-Fitr: Meaning and Celebration by Mr Tariq Rasool- a kashmir based ournalist Festival represents the cultural and civilizational aspect of a particular nation or religion. In this world of nationalistic diversity, every nation or religion has it own particular festival celebrated on a particular day and date in a particular context, with happiness and ecstasy. There is specific historicity behind every festival celebrated in this diverse world. In this post-modernistic world, these reformative, lessoned and enlightening festivals are now confined to carnality, voluptuousness and hilarity. People are celebrating these festivals in such a manner that every body fails to get the essence of a particular Festival, self development. People have distorted the real illustration of the things. Be it Eid or Christmis, Dewali or Ram Navami; all these and other festivals have lost the real sprit which needs immediate attention. There is specific mode of celebrating a particular festival in the religion of Islam, which is beyond human distortions, carnality, voluptuousness and hilarity; therefore one feels real happiness while celebrating a festival according to demands of Islam. Muslims have two important and main festivals EidUl-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azaha. Festivals usually commemorate some famous event (some religious personality's birth or some victory they achieved over their opponents) but the celebration at 'Id-ul-Fitr does not commemorate any such event. We celebrate our own achievement during the previous month of Ramadaan. It is actually Ramadaan which marks a famous event, that of the beginning of the revelation of the Holy Quran to the Holy Prophet. Eid-Ul-Fitr is celebrated at the end of the Ramadaan, which is the most important month in Islamic Calendar. Allah's words were revealed to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) through the angel during the month of Ramadaan, and the words were written down to form the Holy Qur'an. Prophet Muhammad declared the last day of Ramzan to celebrate Eid ul Fitr and strengthening the feeling of brotherhood. These Islamic festivals have some distinguished peculiarities, like religious and congregational consciousness along with nationalistic virtuosity. Islam encompasses everything related to the day to day life and demands absolute and unconditional devotion to Almighty Allah in all aspects of life including celebrating twin Islamic festivals. There is no place for emulating other religions, cultures of civilizations or nations; Islam has its unique culture and civilization, which is weakening day by day due to the incomprehension among the Muslim Community. Islamic has its peculiar point of view about life and its activities. The way of Islam encompasses all aspects of human life is its peculiarity. Our twin Islamic festivals are no more now Islamic but people are emulating things from outside and have distorted the festivities by intermixing Western and European cultural elements with these festivals, with out knowing the ill effects of this mixing. Islam has its own unique culture and one should not follow un-Islamic patterns while celebrating festivals, instead should adhere to the ways that are taught by Islamic culture. Today in this Post-Modernistic wolrd, the Muslim community instead of preferring the Islamic teachings in celebrating festivities is feeling proud to follow outside cultures from Western and European world. Almighty Allaha has bestowed Muslim Ummah (brethren) with tow gifts - the Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azaha, so we should take utmost care and follow Islamic teachings while celebrating this festival. Instead of indulging in carnality, voluptuousness and hilarity, we should stress on religious and collective consciousness. It is tragic that without trying to know the real sprit of Eid the Muslim community in the world remains busy in an unending feast from dawn to dusk, even the preparations for the grand day begin days in advance which indicates that the people have linked Eid day inextricably with feasts which is totally against the very spirit of the day. The essence of Eid is to develop unity among the Ummah, but in contemporary

materialistic world we are going after our own instincts and keep the Quran and Sunnah aside. We prefer and are proud to be the followers of so called modernized cultures and never try to think about following Islamic Culture; instead, we are modernizing, and Westernizing the same. We are individualizing the congregational happiness rather than sharing our happiness within Muslim brethren. We should wipe out all the religious, sectarian or social inequalities. Let us start from this Eid and let us celebrate it with the consciousness of beig a part of a bigger entity. We should prefer Islamic teachings over our instincts. Eid demands from us the creation of united, peaceful and humanistic society. We should celebrate Eid in way that bring us closer to it, so that we can benefit our society. It is tragic that Muslim community is celebrating, with great amount of enthusiasm festivals that are no part of our history and cultural identity and about their own cultural events they are not very much conscious. Another disturbing thing about our ways of celebration is that we are given to much mundane activities and fun and hardly visit our neighbors, relatives and friends who may require us on the day of celebration. We never share our joys with the larger fraternity and remain confined to our own selves. We make no attempt to get closer to our neighbors, friends and relatives on this day. One can not get the happiness of Eid until he helps the needy in his society who are not able to celebrate the day as they have no money to buy some good food and fresh clothing. One should make it a point to find out if any of the neighbors, friends and relatives required some help. Eid must remind us of our cultural moorings and moral values. One should not neglect fundamental principles of our religion, prime values and central beliefs in this modernistic world. We should revitalize the old memories when Eid was celebrated with simplicity, and with the element of pomp and show. When people never left their elders in solitude, when neighbors would sharing the joy with Eid with each other, when rich people would feel happy about visiting a poor family; when eid was a collective affair rather that highly individualistic. Let us celibate today's Eid without indulging in pompous ways, which is creating distances among our own people. Let us retrieve our lost Islamic values and traditions by celebrating the Eid according to Islamic traditions. Let us celebrate it the way it should be celebrated. Feedback at [email protected]