Let’s Celebrate Eid in a Better Way

Ramzan is con­sid­ered as one of the holi­est months in Islam for Mus­lims. It is also called the month of patience and bless­ings. We, as Mus­lims, are required to fast through­out this month. Fur­ther­more, we are also required to pay char­i­ty to the deserv­ing peo­ple in the forms of Zakat and Fitr.

Accord­ing to Islam­ic teach­ings, what­ev­er good acts and prayers Mus­lims per­form in addi­tion to keep­ing fasts dur­ing this month, God mul­ti­plies those deeds sev­er­al times and rewards for them accord­ing­ly. That is the rea­son why Mus­lims try to take lead in per­form­ing such acts which can please God the most. The point to be kept in mind in this regard is that only those good deeds please God that are per­formed with fair inten­tion and self­less­ness.

By now, we have already spent most of the Ramzan-ul-Mubarak. But the ques­tion is, have we achieved the aims for which Ramzan was select­ed for Mus­lims? Have we learnt the lessons which can help us lead our lives accord­ing to the direc­tions giv­en by God and con­veyed through His Last Prophet (PBUH)? To answer that, we need to look deep into our con­science. If we fail to do so, we will be miss­ing the train about which we are not sure of catch­ing it again next year. So, we need to start act­ing now.

Eid is con­sid­ered as the end of Ramzan. Allah has asked Mus­lims to cel­e­brate Eid-ul-Fitr in the end of the holy month because they have kept fasts for Him and now they are allowed to eat all the deli­cious things cre­at­ed by God for His cre­ation. That is why Eid is regard­ed as a gift of God for abid­ing by His orders in Ramzan. All the Mus­lims cel­e­brate this day very hap­pi­ly. They wear new dress­es & shoes, cook tasty foods and vis­it each other’s hous­es to have a get-togeth­er.

Peo­ple start their Eid shop­ping even before Ramzan, and it keeps on increas­ing by the every pass­ing day of the holy month. Our shop­ping spree reach­es its peak imme­di­ate­ly after the offi­cial announce­ment of moon sight­ing.

Every year bil­lions of rupees are spent on the occa­sion of Eid in Pak­istan. This huge spend­ing does not only include mon­ey for dress­es, shoes and jew­el­ry, but also com­pris­es of the food items as well as dec­o­rat­ing hous­es. No doubt, Eid needs be cel­e­brat­ed fes­tive­ly as per our Islam­ic tra­di­tions, but spend­ing so much mon­ey for this pur­pose rais­es a num­ber of moral ques­tions. Prac­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, we do not seem to be more inter­est­ed in observ­ing Ramzan as we do in our Eid shop­ping. The way we pre­pare for cel­e­brat­ing Eid, it looks as if Eid is more impor­tant than the holy month which is full of bless­ings.

In fact, Eid is sim­i­lar to the result day at a school for stu­dents after their exams. If stu­dents devote more time and atten­tion to cel­e­brat­ing the result day than prepar­ing for their exams, can they enjoy the big day in a bet­ter way then? In the same way, Eid is the reward from God to the Mus­lims after they have refrained from all the pro­hib­it­ed things and acts dur­ing Ramzan for the sake of God. So, how would we get the real joy and sat­is­fac­tion on Eid when we have giv­en pref­er­ence to Eid shop­ping than mak­ing the most out of the holy month?

Present­ly, Pak­istani soci­ety is not only fac­ing the eco­nom­ic cri­sis man­i­fest­ed in the form of infla­tion and job­less­ness, but it has also been bad­ly affect­ed by the dis­as­ters like flood, drought, ter­ror­ism and now the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion in Waziris­tan. Peo­ple have been fac­ing these prob­lems one after the oth­er. So tak­ing into account the pre­vail­ing wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tion of the low­er and poor class­es of peo­ple, does it seem rea­son­able to spend so much mon­ey on Eid shop­ping by leav­ing our coun­try­men help­less?

Indeed, if we could spend just half of the mon­ey of our Eid Shop­ping to help out the deserv­ing peo­ple espe­cial­ly dur­ing Ramzan, it would not only please God, but would also enrich us with the true hap­pi­ness of Eid. Let’s see who of us gets the most joy on Eid this time. May Allah enable all of us to cel­e­brate Eid the way He expects us to! Aameen!