{"id":1512,"date":"2011-08-30T09:19:10","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T09:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/projectconversion\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2011-08-30T09:19:10","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T09:19:10","slug":"we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html","title":{"rendered":"We Made It! Eid al-Fitr 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>High-five, congratulations, and Eid mubarak! Today millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan. If you are among those who observed Ramadan, you just exercised one of the most blessed times of the year. Ramadan is indeed a detox program for our body, soul, and mind.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We abstained from food and drink during the daylight hours to remind us of how much we might waste in our daily lives and to lighten our bodies for greater tasks.<\/li>\n<li>Because of this, we now have a greater understanding of our less fortunate brethren and can be of greater service to them through <em>sadaqa<\/em> and <em>zakat<\/em>. Though Eid is a time for visiting family and friends, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) also asked us to visit the poor and needy.<\/li>\n<li>We also abstained from our base needs and instincts during Ramadan, such as sex, vulgarities, and negative behavior. With our patience increased, we can go forth in a world of constant malevolence and display empathy and kindness with greater endurance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Eid al-Fitr is typically celebrated in the Muslim world for about three days, and is marked by joyous gatherings around food, family, and gifts. The term means <em>Eid=&#8221;festivity&#8221; <\/em>and <em>al-Fitr<\/em>= &#8220;breaking&#8221; (of the fast). Congregations\u00a0gather in masjids or other open spaces\/fields for a communal salat called the Eid al-Fitr Salat, which is comprised of two rakah&#8217;s (units), as well as a talk by the learned. My masjid is celebrating on the 31st, so I&#8217;ll experience that prayer tomorrow. There is also a special zakat given before this prayer (anytime during the month) called Zakat al-fitr.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who observed Ramadan with me and followed my progress both here and with the Congregation on Facebook, thank you. In many ways, Ramadan is a race&#8211;not of individuals&#8211;but of a community of believers. The journey is difficult due to the heat of the day and the demands of\u00a0a\u00a0secular culture hell-bent on\u00a0rampant consumerism. Only as a community pulling one another along can Ramadan bless those who strive for good.<\/p>\n<p>We also recognize and do greater works for those who observe the fast every day&#8211;not by choice&#8211;but because\u00a0they are simply without. Muslims now understand, at least by a portion, how it feels to go hungry and have increased their empathy toward these people. With such understanding comes action, action for a solution. On so many occasions, Prophet Muhammad admonished Muslims to be a blessing to the poor and needy. With our training during Ramadan complete, we can now put these ideals into practice.<\/p>\n<p>Inshallah, you had a wonderful Ramadan experience.\u00a0What were your greatest challenges during the month? If this is your first Ramadan, what did you\u00a0find most interesting? What new perspectives have you gained through the Fast?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High-five, congratulations, and Eid mubarak! Today millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan. If you are among those who observed Ramadan, you just exercised one of the most blessed times of the year. Ramadan is indeed a detox program for our body, soul, and mind. We abstained&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[16,419,101,792,354,357,233,353],"class_list":["post-1512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islam","tag-andrew-bowen","tag-eid-al-fitr","tag-fast","tag-islam","tag-muhammad","tag-muslim","tag-project-conversion","tag-ramadan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>We Made It! Eid al-Fitr 2011 - Project Conversion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We Made It! Eid al-Fitr 2011 - Project Conversion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"High-five, congratulations, and Eid mubarak! Today millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan. If you are among those who observed Ramadan, you just exercised one of the most blessed times of the year. Ramadan is indeed a detox program for our body, soul, and mind. We abstained&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Project Conversion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-30T09:19:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"We Made It! Eid al-Fitr 2011 - Project Conversion","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"We Made It! Eid al-Fitr 2011 - Project Conversion","og_description":"High-five, congratulations, and Eid mubarak! Today millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan. If you are among those who observed Ramadan, you just exercised one of the most blessed times of the year. Ramadan is indeed a detox program for our body, soul, and mind. We abstained&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html","og_site_name":"Project Conversion","article_published_time":"2011-08-30T09:19:10+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/08\/we-made-it-eid-al-fitr-2011.html","name":"We Made It! 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