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Muslims'
Affairs in `Eid
As
`Eid Approaches, American Muslims Prepare
Dina
Rashed – Chicago
With
less than a third of the Islamic religious month of Ramadan left,
American Muslims like other Muslims around the globe look forward for
their `Eid celebrations.
As
the month follows the lunar calendar, it is expected that the first day
of the Muslim festivity will fall in either Friday or Thursday, a number
of Islamic centers has already announced Thursday as the first day of
the `Eid following scientific calculations of the new moon.
To
many Islamic centers the biggest challenge is finding the appropriate
place for the community members to conduct the early morning prayers. As
families pour from different directions, many of the mosques fall quite
short of accommodating a space vast enough to absorb the worshipers. The
challenge is especially greater to the smaller centers which are located
within residential houses and are structurally incapable of hosting all
the congregants.
The
Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago, one of the leading Islamic
centers in the Windy City has been facing the same challenge for many
years despite its relatively big facility. Though architecturally
designed to serve almost 300 worshipers in its prayer area, still the
facility falls short of having enough room for the `Eid crowd. In the
past years, two prayers used to be conducted while utilizing the
center’s social hall in addition to the prayer area, still that was
not good enough to absorb the over 2000 worshippers who come in as early
as 6 a.m. Finally the management of the center decided a few years ago
to rent a banquet hall big enough for the prayer of its increasing
crowd.
In
Barrington, another Chicago suburb, the Al-Azhar Islamic Foundation made
a similar decision to rent a nearby banquet hall. Though the AIF has
joined the growing tree of Chicago’s Islamic centers only three years
ago, its increasing membership necessitated the search for a more
spacious hall bigger than its current facility.
More
than One Khutbah, More than One Prayer
One
of the traditions of many Islamic centers in the US is to hold more than
one Khutbah and some times more than one prayer. Unlike Islamic
countries, different languages, ethnicities and the dispersion of the
Muslim population over vast distances produced a need for such a
tradition.
Centers
that have a strong ethnic majority tend to hold two khutbahs in two
languages: an English one in addition to another conducted in the
congregants’ native language, such as Urdu, Arabic, Bosnian or
Spanish.
Geography
mandates also that center hold more multiple prayers to accommodate the
widely scattered but increasing number of Muslim families, which may
take a 90-minute drive to reach the closest Islamic center. It is a
common sight in many mosques in the Metropolitan area of Washington D.C.
to hold three prayers along a span of 4 or 5 hours as Muslims flock from
the two neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia.
Carrying
the Tradition of the New Clothes
`Eid
carries a fashion statement here as well, following the tradition of
Prophet of having new clothes for the `Eid; Muslims spend the last few
days of Ramadan shopping for new clothes for all family members
specially the children. In the immigrant communities where the ethnic
dress still carries a sense of pride and nostalgia, the prayer is also a
fashion show occasion for jewelry and the modest Islamic dress. Adorned
with beads, embroidery and colorful fabrics, children, women and men
elegantly dress in the traditional outfits.
Typically
the first day of the `Eid is a long day for all the family members
beginning with the Takbeer and prayer, but including a whole program of
socialization, family visits and outings to entertain the younger
generations of the family. In a society where the Islamic values does
regulate to a great length the kinds of entertainment permissible to
most Muslim kids, parents make sure that the first day is a day of
delight and joy to their kids. Theme parks and children’s indoor game
facilities are among the most common places that visited on that day.
Many Islamic centers also prepare a whole program of entertainment to
provide safe entertainment environment to the whole Muslim family.
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