The Islamic Festivals

The purpose of all festivals is to let the people celebrate an occasion together,to share its joys and to feel united.Religious festivals unite us in our love of God as much as of each other.Most of our festivals are religious.

Our main religious and social festivals are Eid-ul-Fitr,Eid-ul-Azha and Eid Milad-un-Nabi.We celebrate them together each year with great joy and zeal or passion.

Eid is a Arabic word which means festival.Eids are celebrated in three Islamic Lunar months all around the world.

On the day of Eid people emjoy and express happiness and offer prayers in the form of group....usually they gather in an open land or in a mosque and tons of people join together and pray in congregation and ask Allah for His blessing,forgiveness of all sins and ask for success in this life and hereafter that is good life.Also they ask for the true path to live in this life and get forgiveness for all sins and get destination that is heaven,which Muslims believe will bring succes in this life and hereafter only if they lead this life on true path,never lie,never harm to others with thier hand and with their tongue and believe uniformity in all human beings and are never proud on themself and we think God has blessed us with this quality and we are always thankful to our God and try to help others especially the poor,before all should have faith in the Oneness of God.So it is claer that Eid celebration is not only an expression of our happiness but also it express the spiritual happiness.After Eid prayers and meeting on the occasion of Eid,people hug each other.Eid is the time to spread happiness,love and triumph thereby creating enthusiasm among all the family members.

"Eid-ul-Fitr" is celebrated after the holy month of Ramazan is over.It means "reward" that is given to us in the form of joy,satisfaction and hope after we have fasted for one full month.We have the satisfaction of having purified ourselves,bodily and spiritually.We feel happier in our kindness and help to others.Every Muslim who has enough means is to give a certain amount of wheat or its value in money to the needy.We can give more.

Eid-ul-Fitr festival is also called feast of breaking the fast.Ramazan is the holy month of Muslims.Allah revealed the Holy Quran to Holy Prophet(peace be upon him) during this month.Once the crescent moon is sighted,the Ramazan month comes to end and on the first day of Islamic lunar month Shawwal,it is now the time for celebrations for people of Muslim culture.In the whole month of holy Ramazan,Muslims keep fasting and from sunrise to sunset everyday they eats and drink nothing.Muslims believe,after almost 600 years of Prophet Jesus,the God sent Prophet Muhammad into this world to show the right path to human mankind to live in this world and believe in the oneness of God,Pray 5 times,keep fasting,do charity,go on pilgrimage.God makes the whole month of Ramazan fasting is obligatory.After this He gives a fruitful end in name of festival Eid-ul-Fitr festival and it is also called Ramazan festival.On this holy occasion people give charity to poor so that poor people also can celebrate the festival and wear new clothes and go for special Eid prayer ceremony near by mosque to thank God by reciting various prayers.After the prayer there is get together at Muslim's house for Eid meal,which has special dishes and variety of desserts.After that people go to their relatives and friends place and meet them and greet them Eid's happiness or happy Eid.

"Eid-ulAzha" means the festival of sacrifice.It is the festival that celebrates Hazrat Ibrahim's attempt to sacrifice his son and his actual sacrifice of a sheep.

Eid-ul-Azha festival,celebrated on the 10th day of last Islamic Lunar month,is also called feast of the sacrificed.The Eid-ul-Ates in the remembrance of Prophet Ibrahim's readiness to sacrifice his son Ismail to God as an act of submission to God's command and his son's acceptance to being sacrificed,before God intervened to provide Prophet Ibrahim with a sheep to sacrifice instead.On another occasion God ordered Prophet Ibrahim to leave his wife Hajira and son Ismail alone far away.He again sacrificed his love for his son and He left them far away with a huge amount of food grains but after sometime mother and son had nothing left and then a infant was crying for thirst and dehydration.Miraculously god started one spring of water from the earth at the feet of Ismail.This water never got stopped from that time and its name is "ZAM ZAM water" and it is believed to be Holy water in Muslim culture.Later Prophet Ibrahim was instructed by the God to build a Holy building in front of that Holy spring water well.It's name is Kaaba in Makkah,Saudi Arabia.In the remembrance of Prophet Ibrahim's sacrifices.Muslims celebrates Eid-ul-Azha.At the time of Eid-ul-Azha people go to Hajj Pilgrimage and people give sacrifice of sheep,cows,camels with the remembrance of the sacrifice given by the Prophet Ibrahim and followed and obeyed what His God ordered.Muslims believe they obey the same God of Prophet Ibrahim who is very near to God.

Every Muslim,who has to means,is to sacrifice an animal in the way of God,after the Eid prayers.At least one-third of the meat of the sacrificed animal is to be distributed among the needy.The rest of the two-third meat can be shared by the family,relatives and neighbors of the owner of the animal.Here again,we share our meat with others and show our generosity.Our joys cannot be complete without it.In this way,we show practically that we are ready to sacrifice our all for God,for our "deen"(religion) or for the society or the country if it so demands.

"Eid Milad-un-Nabi" means the festival on the birth of our Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him).It is celebrated in memory of our greatest leader who showed the world the right path of Islam.We celebrate the successes of Islam by remembering the Prophet's mission on earth.

All Islamic festivals bring us closer and show us our common path and aims.They are the outer expression of our inner belief and faith.The inner faith and the outer expression,in this sense,make up Islamic culture.The outer expression includes our customs,ways of life,our buildings,the most sacred (holy) the House of God (the mosque).

The Islamic festivals,in fact,bring out the spirit of Islam in concrete form.They show that we can be truly happy if we live a life of purity,hard work,worship and generosity.Social happiness depends on sharing each other's joys and sorrows as advised by God and the Holy Prophet.

Religion plays a significant role in Muslim culture.Muslims believe in oneness of God.Their concept of religion is oneness of God.They celebrate festivals because of God's order.Muslim try to spend their live as per Gods wishes.Likewise in their festivals,Muslims remember their God and they celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr,Eid-ul-Azha and Eid Milad-un-Nabi for the sake of God's mercy and heaven after death.