We celebrated Eid yesterday (I think most of the world did, but some are celebrating today. think it's cuz diff countries spot the full moon on diff days....).
Eid literally translates as celebration/festival (me thinks...). It's the Muslim equivalent to Christmas! But we celebrate eid twice (teehee).
This Eid is Eid-ul-fitr, where we celebrate the end of Ramadan, and the beginning of the next month, Shawwal.
Most people see this as the end of their temporary religious phase, and fall out of the good habits that they got into during Ramadan. Hopefully this wont happen to many people!! (Or me, at least!)
It's Sunnah (tradition of the Prophet Mohammed p.b.u.h) To wear your best outfits, spend time with your loved ones, and just generally be merry and happy on this day :D
So it may explain why you suddenly see all the muslims in your community (mainly the brownies) look like sparkly christmas trees, strutting there stuff about town.
I like to think that I am not one of these. (Sadly, I probably am....)
Basically, you get dressed up in your nicest, newest clothes, cook lots of yummy food, host your family/friends or go visit your family/friends and exchange presents/money. It's pretty fun :)
Then there's Eid ul-Adha, which is celebrated on the 10th, 11th and 12th day of the last Islamic month of Dhul Hijja, and the celebrations start after Hajj (the islamic pilgrimage). This Eid commemorates the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (as) aka Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail (as) aka Ishmael, as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep to sacrifice instead.
This act is further commemorated by sacrificing sheep/lambs on Eid, and distributing it amongst family, friends and generally to feed the poor, so we always end up with a freezer full of lamb around this time....There's probably a significant dip in the lamb/sheep population around Eid ul-Adha, come to think of it....
So my Eid consisted of getting up, sitting in my PJ's, watching telly and eating left over pizza from the night before for breakfast (also known as the breakfast of champions). Then I got up, showered, sorted my face out and got dressed up all fancy, and then went to my uncles house to go spend some time with the family and stuff our faces.
My dad's mum (my dadi amee) has come to visit us in the UK from America, before she heads back to pakistan, and she's been staying at our house and my uncles alternatively while she's here. She's at my uncles at the moment, so we spent some time with her there.
Then we went to my other grandma's house (and grandad!), to meet up with my mums side of the family and have a chinwag and take pictures and blah blah.
Then we came home and chilled for a bit, before taking my grandma and my uncles family out to dinner in the evening.
We went to Wilmslow road, and any british asian who's from manchester, or has been to manchester and knows about this road probably has a furrowed brown and is thinking 'Ayesha, how could you!?' right now, but I assure you, I had no choice in the matter.
Wilmslow rd, also know as Wimmy rd, also know as 'the curry mile' (the title is pretty self explanatory. It's just a mile of Indian restaurants!) is notorious to british asians around the north-west or the UK. For some unknown reason, men and women alike (mostly the men) feel the need to regress and turn into raving mad lunatics. People come from far and wide, wear there most bizarre and unflattering clothes, hire out the fanciest cars, blast out the stupidest and most irritating songs from there car, and basically drive up and down this road, beeping at girls, blowing vuvuzelas (google that annoying shizzle if you're not familiar with it) and just generally make you feel ashamed to be of the same species. It's like an extended, annual, Asian version of Jersey Shore, basically.
Then we came home, drank tea, and went to bed!
In our family, the elders usually give us young'uns money instead of presents, which I much prefer :D but every house is different.
I'm off to see the Dark Knight Rises now! Ramadan has kept me busy, do I'm finally off to reconnect with society and see if Tom Hardy still looks good with a weird mask on.
I'll be catching up and commenting on everyone's blogs tonight hopefully! Excuse any typos in the post, I'm finishing it off in the car on my phone, so can't really be bothered to proof read (not that I ever do!)
Xo
Leftover pizza is the ultimate breakfast :D I'm sorry but I had no idea what Eid Mubarak was :( So thank you very much for the nice lesson :) It sounds like you had a pretty good day too. Well done on sticking to the fasting and everything so well, and I hope that you don't just toss aside all the good you've achieved.
ReplyDeleteI hope so! it's so easy to slip back into old habits. I'll have more self control hopefully!
DeleteThis was so interesting! And I had to laugh when I read that you got up, stayed in your PJs, watched TV and ate pizza lol... I was expecting something traditional!!! Kulcha chapathis? Roti? No.... Pizza lol. I love it and it's beautiful to see how you live in one world but keep alive the traditions/beliefs from another.
ReplyDeleteIn India there were always two days of holiday for Eid and I never understood exactly why. I think that they would expect to see the moon on one day - so a holiday was declared - but then it didn't happen and so the next day was a holiday as well? Does that make sense? I might have gotten it wrong.
Anyway, have a wonderful time on this auspicious day :)
We usually have roti much later for lunch of dinner, but since we had so much during ramadan, I wanted a bit of a break :P
DeleteAhhh I think one of the holidays is the day before eid, called 'Chaand Raat'', which is where people set up stalls, markets and funfairs and basically celebrate the night where you are searching for the full moon to signify that Ramadan is over, and then the next day is Eid :)
We never really do anything in the UK for that, the atmosphere is never really the same in a non-muslim country!
And thank you for the well wishes ;D
Always fun to learn about other cultures and their traditions! Sounds like you had a pretty good time as well. Good for you! :D
ReplyDeleteohhh I did. i ate so much is was unbelievable :D
DeleteI would love to go to Wimslow rd. It sounds like my sort of place. We'll see once I have commented you, and have a chance to check out videos on the internet. Stuff like that is against the law in the U.S. because we're boring. The closest I have come to experiencing something like what you are talking about is during street festivals where 'cruising' is allowed. It's fun until it's not.
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, if only it was illegal here! It is pretty funny to watch sometimes though :P
DeleteI thought ramadan was later in the year...
ReplyDeleteNopeee, the Islamic calander is Lunar, so its 10/11 days shorter than the Gregorian calender, so Ramadan falls at different times of the year (it usually goes back about 10 days, so will be 10 days earlier then it was this year)
Delete