Eid

 My family from both my mother and father’s side are devout Muslims. In turn, I was raised in a household and in a community full of devout Muslims. We fast during Ramadan, pray 5 times a day, and abstain from eating pork. While these examples are daily occurrences of Muslim “traditions” we follow in our lives, they quite honestly unfaze me because of how normalized they have become in my life. A Muslim “tradition” -- more accurately a holiday -- I enjoy is Eid. From waking up at 6 am due to sheer excitement to rushing to ToysRUs after the mosque prayer to buy new toys as an Eid gift, I grew up loving Eid. It was my version of Christmas since my family does not celebrate “American” holidays. 

Muslims actually get two Eids (making it better than Christmas in my personal opinion): one after Ramadan and one around 3 months later the “Ramadan Eid”. While the Ramadan Eid feels like the “bigger one” since it culminates an entire month of fasting, it is meant to be the “lesser” of the two according to the Quran. “Ramadan Eid” is more accurately called Eid Al-Fitr and income-earning Muslims are expected to donate a percentage of their salary to charity (known as zakat). The second Eid is known as Eid Al-Adha, with Muslim men are expected to perform Qurbani or the ritual slaughtering of goats to give to the poor. Oftentimes, Muslims in the United States perform Qurbani for themselves and to give to their friends, but they also send money overseas to majority Muslim countries in order to feed their poor -- combining both “traditions” outlined by the Quran. 

In order to determine the date of Eid -- as Islam relies on the lunar calendar -- experts track the moon patterns searching for a crescent shape of the moon or chaan as my family calls it. If the chaan is spotted (or predicted to be spotted due to our advances in technology), Eid will be celebrated the following morning. Typically, Muslims know which day Eid is beforehand due to researched predictions. Interestingly enough, Eid actually begins as soon as the sun sets since again, Islam is based on the lunar calendar. To clarify, the lunar day begins as soon as the sun sets. As soon as the sun sets on my household, you can hear each member taking turns chiming Eid Mubarak! to one another and my mother ushering us to go to bed as we both have to get up early in the morning to attend Eid prayer in the mosque and dress up in our best cultural attire (in my family’s case, Indian). 

The morning of Eid, my entire family gets up between 5 and 6 am -- two to three hours before we need to leave for the mosque. I’m always excited to peel off the henna from my arms & hands and see which pretty shade the pattern stain is. My mom spends at least 4 hours the day before Eid doing my sisters’, hers, and my henna. In order to get the “darkest” or best color, we usually allow the henna to dry overnight -- sleeping with plastic bags over our arms. As soon as we manage to rub the henna off, my sisters and I run to our parents' room to collect our Eidi (money adults give to children as an Eid gift). After frantically trying on several dresses and accessories, we speed to the mosque -- always barely catching the prayer. To be quite honest, most people go for what’s after the prayer: socializing. Saying that the Muslim community spends at least 2 hours greeting one another with Eid Mubarak! and small talk would be an under exaggeration. When I was younger, I would simply run to the Kona Ice truck or bouncy house that my mosque had rented for the day with my friends while waiting for my parents to finish. As I grew up, my friends & I would simply leave the mosque after prayer together and head over to one of our homes to hang out or grab lunch at a restaurant together. 

Perhaps the best part of Eid is the food. My mother always prepares our favorite dishes to create an entire feast. From making cultural food such as biryani (a rice dish) and poori (a type of bread), she also always makes sure to include non-traditional food we enjoy such as tiramisu and pasta. The entire day would be filled with families dropping off MORE food as well as Eidi for my siblings and me I. Essentially, we would be set in terms of cooking for an entire week. I hope to give my kids this version of Eid -- the one where they get to connect to their religion/culture, connect to their community, and overall just have fun.