Eid al-Fitr

When it falls

The first day of Shawwāl, the month after Ramaḍān, beginning with the sighting of the new crescent at sunset on the last day of the fast. It moves eleven days earlier each solar year.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Fiṭr is the breaking of the fast. After the twenty-nine or thirty days of Ramaḍān the crescent is looked for at sunset, and the moment it is seen the month of fasting is over and the festival begins. Because the sighting decides it, neighbouring countries sometimes keep Eid a day apart.

The Prophet Muḥammad established the two Eids at Medina in the second year after the migration, and this one carries the charity of the fast: before the morning prayer every family gives zakāt al-fiṭr, a fixed measure of food or its price for each member, so that the poor keep Eid with everyone else.

In South Asia it is the sweet Eid (mīṭhī Eid), from the sevaiyāṅ (vermicelli) that every household cooks; across Indonesia and Malaysia it is Lebaran, the week when the cities empty as everyone returns to their home village (mudik).

How the day is kept

• The night before is Chānd Rāt, the night of the moon: markets open till dawn for bangles, mehndī and last clothes.
• A bath and new clothes before sunrise, dates eaten before the prayer, then the Eid prayer in the open ground with the sermon after.
• Embraces with the greeting Eid Mubārak, visits to relatives all day, eidī (money) for the children, and the graves of the family visited.
• Hyderabad's Charminar, Delhi's Jāmaʿ Masjid, Kolkata's Red Road and Lucknow's Eidgāh hold the great gatherings; Jakarta's Istiqlal mosque holds a quarter of a million.

At the table

Sheer khurmā, vermicelli cooked in milk with dates, and sevaiyāṅ with sugar and ghee; biryānī or kormā for the midday meal; in Turkey it is the sugar festival (Şeker Bayramı) and in Indonesia ketupat, rice steamed in woven palm leaves.

More holy days