Eid El-Fitr (Less Bairam)

When Ramadan ends Muslims break their fasting. A three days festival (Eid El-fitr) is held to celebrate the occasion. The first day is today 13th of November in some of Muslims countries like Saudi Arabia and most of Arabian Gulf countries. In Iraq and Indonesia, it is tomorrow. Since Muslims start their months according to the appearance of the moon, they watch the horizon looking for the crescent at sunset of the 29th day of Ramadan. One may ask (What about a cloudy day?), and the answer is to keep on fasting for the 30th day of Ramadan. Yesterday, it wasn’t clear sky in Iraq, so we completed thirty days of fasting.

An Islamic ritual at the end of Ramadan is to pay little amount of money by every Muslim who has sufficient income. This amount is called (Zakah El-Fitr). It should be paid, by those who like to, on the last day of Ramadan. It is one kind of the social insurance in Islam. This (Zakah El-Fitr) is to be paid to poor people so that they can celebrate (Eid El-fitr).
The amount differs from one year to another. This year it is about $1 for each person. That is to pay $1 for each member of the family by the paterfamilias. One may pay it directly to poor people whom he/she knows. Otherwise is to give it to a trustee.

People visit and greet each other in Eid. In Iraq the most common greetings is (Ayamkum Sa’eida) which means (wishing you happy days).
A friend of mine insists to change this greeting to (wishing you normal days). Of course he jokes about our abnormal days since 1990. He explains that we live under the line of normal days, so we should achieve the normal life and then to think about happiness.

Finally (Ayamkum Sa’eida) to all readers of this post and to the whole world.