Muslims all over the world will be waking up early this Monday [or Tuesday] morning and making their way to prayer in celebration of Eid ul-Fitr. 
It is a joyous occasion with important religious significance. Happiness is observed at attaining spiritual uplift after a month of fasting. Muslims dress in holiday attire. After attending the special congregational prayer in the morning, worshippers greet and embrace each other in a spirit of peace, love, and brotherhood. Visiting friends and relatives is common.For Muslims, Eid ul-Fitr is a joyful celebration of the achievement of enhanced piety. It is a day of forgiveness, moral victory and peace, of congregation, fellowship, brotherhood and unity. Muslims are not only celebrating the end of fasting, but thanking God for the help and strength that they believe he gave them throughout the previous month to help them practice self-control.[wiki]
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p>Eid morning childhood memories for me are littered with 6am wake up calls, new colorful outfits, fresh warm rashagallas quickly stuffed in mouths and static-y arabic suras blasting through the tape deck in the family car as we made our way to the 8am morning prayer. Prayers were held in a huge hangar at the Fairplex – otherwise home to the LA County Fair – but on this morning, it was always home to thousands of Muslims from all across Southern California coming together in Eid solidarity. While my father went with the men folks one way, we women would enter through another, taking shoes off and keeping an eye out for family friends. As we lay down our prayer mats amongst a colorful sea of satin, sparkles, and smiles, you could hear Eid greetings being murmured in Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Farsi, and Malay all around. The sound system would crackle, there would be a slight pause in the crowd, and then azan (the call to prayer) could be heard through the speakers. We would all rise, stand shoulder to shoulder, a holy hush would fall over the crowd and Eid prayers would begin…
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p>I have always loved Eid-ul-Fitr, more so than the other Eid, because this one marked the end of fasting for Ramadan. The day is spent reflecting on the success of fasting, the feeling like I had accomplished something. I had resisted food/ temptation/ indulgence/ profanity/ haraam for a whole month, and hoped that I could hang on to that spirituality, until the next Ramadan came along. Of course, it is also a day to spend in celebration with family, which for us always involves an inordinate amount of chaat puti, puris, goat curry, and rashmali.
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p>Sadly, as I researched for this piece, the stories I found were somber – attacks on Iraqi Ramadan shoppers, an exploding fruit cart killed nine in Pakistan, the possible use of spy planes over Eid prayer. I didn’t want to ignore those stories altogether, but I did want to shine a positive light on what Eid means to millions of Muslims around the world. But these stories are a reminder, at least for me, to pray for the defeat of ‘evil-doers’ everywhere in my Eid prayers today.
Hopefully everyone in the mutiny had a wonderful Ramadan. Here’s to wishing everyone an Eid Mubarak!
nope. and only 6 south asians in the school.
I’ve met an amazingly low number of Muslims in real life, despite having grown up in India where Muslims make up a bigger chunk of the population than here. I studied 19 years in various schools in South India. There was one guy in 1st grade, but he was killed in an accident before I got to know him. Then there was one guy in college, but we hardly talked because he was not the talkative type. So most of what I know comes from textbooks and TV news etc. The beliefs are easy to find from books/websites but it’s different…no book can say how an individual approaches his/her religion, only what a general common view is. Anwyay, with a percentage as high as 15%, one shouldn’t have to rely on books.
My close friend and I have talked a lot about why this might be. If 15% of Indians are Muslims, why aren’t 15% of my classmates? You were much more likely to see Christians, Jains, Sikhs (although not a Buddhist). We think it has a lot to with some segregation, which is very unhealthy for communal relationships. The reason I asked is, I’m beginning to wonder if we’d have better chance of knowing Muslims on a person-to-person basis if I went to school in some metro in the US rather than in South India.
I had a very good Eid. I’m not much of a praciticing Muslim, although the rest of my family is. As I have some issues with Islam but that’s neither here nor there. This Eid my entire family here in Canada got together and it was a beautiful time. What made it special was that my brother who lives in a small town in Northern Ontario brought along friends of his from the Ivory Coast in West Africa, who are also Muslim, to stay with our family for the weekend. Maybe I never gave my family enough credit, but it was impressive to me to say the least to see not only my immediate family members but extended family treat our guests with such warmth and hospitality. My extended family is from a poor rural background in Northern Pakistan and I always regarded them as not exactly the most enlightened of people and typically very insular and close minded, I was waiting for them to say or do some stupid things, but boy was I proven wrong. It’s a shame I have had such a negative view of people, they may not be perfect, but they are good people…I was the one being narrowminded in condemning them.
Often the case. Rural people are generally pretty simple, and therefore, pretty simply accepting of others. Whereas people who are more “cultured” and more wealthy tend to be more snobbish and non-accepting, often judgementa. Well, this has been my experience.
You didn’t ask if I went to a metro school- I went to a ‘gangsta’ school in the burbs with a difficult enough of a time to create an ethnic identity, much less Muslim. No offense, but maybe Muslims in India don’t like to go to where you go (wasn’t there, like, killings in India over Muslim vs. Hindu strife?)… i.e. Did you go to a mosque, or maybe make that effort to meet them where they kick it? Plus, Muslims in India look the same as other Indians. You may have been friends with them, and you just didn’t know.
I’m just saying that it’s not a matter where you live- it’s a matter of how much effort you are willing to make in seeking people out and crossing that divide. And understanding the cultural complexities of what it means to be Muslim in India- it could be that their insularity is a means of survival over there…
Outside of Kerala and perhaps Tamil Nadu, I do not think there are sizable Muslim populations in South India (please correct me if I am wrong). I worked with a woman from Tamil Nadu, who was Hindu and married to a Muslim. Apparently this was not that uncommon. I’m completely speculating here, but I think Southern India has had a more “tolerant” and “open” history with Muslims than the north, possibly due to the fact that the earliest Muslims came there as traders instead of as conquerers.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but here’s a map that details the concentration of Muslim population in India.
Re: Muslims in schools
Muslims in Indian are pretty poor (especially up in the north in states like UP). People who come from India to the US for high tech jobs/grad schools etc. probably went to very good schools in India and its no surprise that they did not see any Muslims there in the schools they attended in India. For example, in cities across UP, Muslims usually range from 20-30% and very few of them are able to go to the elite schools of those cities. I suspect the percentage of Muslims students would be much higher in public schools.
Also with periodic state sponsored mini-massacres of Muslims in Meerut, Bhagalpur, Surat, Bombay and now Gujarat, it would make sense for Muslims to keep their heads down and maintain a low profile.
It boils down to segregation (for whatever reason(s). Most cities have distinct Muslim areas or neighborhoods, where Hindus are a small to non-existant minority. There are other neighborhoods which are more mixed, but usually they are also ‘working-class’ kinds of places (so people like Kurma and others from India on this site would not likely have interacted with them). Upscale areas (or even middle-class areas) have fewer Muslims, because generally-speaking, they are not as well-off (as a group). Plus, there is not a lot of social interaction taking place anyway, due to prejudices on both sides.
My close friend and I have talked a lot about why this might be. If 15% of Indians are Muslims, why aren’t 15% of my classmates?
It depends, if you went to a Kendriya Vidhyalas in northern India (UP, etc), perhaps close to 15% will be Muslims. Not strictly, as AMD said, economics plays a big role, and also self-segregation.
It is not any different from African Americans here. Say, if you went to Doon School (high end prep school), I am sure the percentage will be lot lower. Getting admitted to IIT, IIM has mostly economics in play to be competitive.
However, I went to pretty preppie schools and University in India, I would say that close to 10% were Muslims where I attended but then Roorkee is within Muslim dominated area – Saharanpur, Meerut, etc.
Over the years, my father has been main advisor to around 35 PhD students – it included Men, Women, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Muslims. One of his last formal (before retirement) student was a Muslim – the student was a son of a medical doctors – he is in States, his brother is a LSE graduate, and is in UK. Again, economic status is the key.
I grew up in Hyderabad. About a quarter of my class in elementary and high school at the small school I went to was Muslim, a few Christians and Parsis, the rest of us were Hindus. Maybe because Hyderabad having a strong Muslim culture also has Muslims distributed throughout all strata of society like Hindus. My school was populated mainly by upper middle class types regardless of religion. We grew up around each other and went over to each others’ houses for holidays so we didn’t really have that sense of cultural insularity . I really think Hyderabad is the most cosmopolitan city in India, horrible communal riots notwithstanding.
Hyderabad is in South India, so there is another large Muslim population besides TN and Kerala.
I really think Hyderabad is the most cosmopolitan city in India, horrible communal riots notwithstanding.
I would agree. I have been to Hyderababd twice recently.
Just go to Charminar (perhaps one of the largest bazaars in the world), has one of the largest mosque in Asia is surrounded by temples. In fact, one of the Charminar pillar has a makeshift Hindu temple.
Another example is Chandini Chowk, Delhi – Jama Masjid, Gurduwara Sisganj, and multiple temples next to each other.
When I am in India, I wake up to Bollywood songs, hymns from Gurudwara, temple, mosque on loud speaker before sun rise. All this said, I am not sugar-coating underlying tension and violence that does shows up time to time between religions.
I strongly think mixing in India, like any country in the world is dictated by economic stratification.
Not only do mosque and temple coexist around the Charminar but its builder, Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah, was married to a Hindu woman. How’s that for mixing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Quli_Qutb_Shah
For the romantically inclined – How Hyderabad came to be.
(although not a Buddhist)
Kurma,
Often, Buddhists in India do not openly identify unless they are monks. Again, if you went to the Himalayas, you would see a lot of Buddhists in their robes.
Also, quite a few people in India have some mixed version of faith practised – Hinduism and Buddhism together. Very similar to what is happening in America today – Christianity, Jewish, and Buddhism often mix – New York Times had an article recently.
If you visited in northern Indian areas around Delhi and up – you would interacted with Muslims at every walk of life – school mates to sabji wala or tailor