Eid 2008/Eid 1429!

Eid Mubarak to Everyone! Happy Eid Ul-Fitr!

Celebrating Eid in Kolkata this time. 

I guess Eid is celebrated here last compared to the rest of the world. The Middle East, U.K and Australia had it on tuesday, 30/09/2008(day before yesterday), the U.S and some parts of India celebrated Eid-Ul Fitr on wednesday, 01/10/2008 (yesterday) and the remaining parts of India including West Bengal is celebrating Eid-Al-Fitr today, 02/10/2008. 

The reason for these differences is because the Islamic/Hijri Calendar is based on the Lunar Calendar. The start/end of months are based on the sightings of the crescent moon. 

More Info:

Question: If the moon is sighted any place on earth, then why all Muslim Ummah(nation) cannot start the Islamic month on the same day.

Answer: When the moon is sighted in a place on earth, right at that moment there are two days and dates prevailing all over the globe. Some places have already started their next day. Those places can not start the month at that time. They have to wait for the next sunset time to start new month, and hence their month will not start on the same day as the place where the moon was sighted.

Suppose the moon is only possible to be seen in Hawaii and nowhere in the world. Even if we know ahead of time that the moon will be sighted in Hawaii, the time of starting Islamic month will be after sunset in Hawaii (around 6:00pm). At that time in Tokyo, the time will be 1:00pm of the next day. If this was month of Ramadan, this is way past Suhoor time in Tokyo. They cannot start fasting 9 hours before the month can begin anywhere in the world e.g. in Hawaii in this case.

The above transcript is from http://www.central-mosque.com/fiqh/FAQMoonSighting.htm

There's the hype of Durga pujo comin around so there's not any less of celebrations. 

2nd of October also happens to be Gandhi Jayanti, birthday of Mohadas Karamchand Gandhi, Father of Nation, India. 

It is the season of festivities here in India. 

Many holidays have passed and many more celebrations in the pipeline.

Festivals in the near past:

Onam : 12th September

Eid-Al-Fitr : 2nd October(Differ in different parts of the World)

Gandhi Jayanti : 2nd October

Coming-Up!:

Dussehra : 9th of October

Durga Puja : 6th October

Diwali : 28th October

Onam is celebrated by the people of Kerala(I am a Keralite myself). 

Eid-Al-Fitr is also celebrated by muslims all over the World,(I'm a muslim too) 

And Gandhi Jayanti is a happy day for all Indians alike(Yes, I'm an Indian too. :)).

Dusshera is a celebrated over entire North-India. Durga Puja is celebrated with greate enthusiasm in West Bengal. 

Diwali is a very colourful festival observed over all parts of India . 

Thats Unity in Diversity!

Ok, Back to Eid talk, here's a very good song by Zain Bikha praising God on Eid-Al-Fitr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0FLE6zBFRY

I liked it and hope that you'll like it too.

More later.

Happy Eid Again!