New Delhi: TNN 21 September 2009, Muslims celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr on the first day of Shawwal-the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, with the sighting of the new crescent, following the month of Ramzan.
Eid-ul-Fitr is a festival of joy, family reunion and thanksgiving, it being one of the two great Islamic festivals, the other being Eid-ul-Azha.
Eid-ul-Fitr's importance can be judged from the fact that Allah himself ordered the believers to celebrate it. Prophet Muhammad established the Islamic egalitarian society, free of all kinds of exploitation and corruption, and maintaining the sanctity of society was made obligatory of all believers in every age.
The month of fasting (Ramzan) was selected to help prepare believers for this responsibility. During the specific fasting periods, believers are required to refrain from enjoying such things which are otherwise allowed. To restrain from lawful things consistently for a month helps a great deal in building willpower to refrain from unlawfulness.
The purpose of this exercise is mentioned in the following verse of the Quran: "So that you may learn restraint".(2:183)
Usually festivals are celebrated to mark the change of seasons or on the establishment of monument or for recollecting a historic event.
What Islam declares is this: The change of season takes place according to the law of Allah; monuments by humans can perish and world events forgotten. But the message of Allah, preserved in the Quran, can never vanish-the charge of its preservation he got unto himself; he who is alive and can never die; is so lasting that he has neither any decadence, nor is destined to decay.
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9:53 PM
Moderate Islamist here
