What is Hari Raya Aidilfitri? My version of Aidilfitri

After a month, we muslims fast from early dawn till dusk, Hari Raya Aidilfitri is a symbol of victory for us!! To be able to fast for a whole month not just from food and drinks but also from bad deeds, bad talks, bad thoughts and etc. We are trained to at least try our best for 30 days from doing bad things hoping when the Ramadhan is over, we could get used to not-doing-bad-things.

Well, I hope I've put it in the most simple way (^^)

I've celebrated 26 Aidilfitri (counting from the age where I could feel the joy) so far and every year has it's own joy, hardship and memories.  This year I have my adorable son with me!!

My son with his baju melayu outfit and Kupiah

During Aidilfitri, we are encouraged to wear the fines cloth we have, eat the best dish we could to celebrate the victory. During the first day of Aidilfitri, we are forbid to fast  to respect the victory. So even for those who fast everyday, they can't fast on 1st day of Aidilfitri.

 The night before Aidilfitri, right after the dusk approaches, we are encouraged to takbir (a form of recital that prays to Allah) starting after our maghrib prayer untill the next day's zuhur. You could consider it as a form of victory song for us.

My in-law family, Telaga Daing, Terengganu Malaysia

In the morning,families would prepare themselves for our Aidilfitri prayer. It's encouraged to have breakfast together first before going to the mosque or surau. The ladies would also join the prayer. It could be considered as one of the prayer that is joined by the women the most.

Hence, you would hear echoes of takbir (victory song) in the air from all the mosques and surau. We are encouraged to takbir as much as we could before the Aidilfitri prayer which is usually performed around 8:30-8:45 A.M. You would see flocks of people coming towards the mosque to pray during this special day.

After the prayer, there will be a khutbah (preach) delivered by the imam to remind us the real meaning of Aidilfitri, how should we celebrate it in a proper way, what should we gain from the 30-day of fasting and how we should keep doing good deeds throughout our life.

 

My son Xiyad Asytar and his grandpa

After prayer, everyone would usually go back home as one of the tradition is to seek for forgiveness from among the family members before visiting others. As for my own family, we do it in a proper session where we would form a circle or something like that, our parents would be waiting for us to handshake them and ask for forgiveness.

The elder one will start up till the youngest child.

My son Xiyad and his auntie. Turquoise team!!




Aidilfitri is one of the best time for us to formally seek for forgiveness from our parents if we have ever hurt them during the past year. In my family we do it in a very sincere way where it really is a touching moment for each and every one of us.



It is encouraged to let the one we seek for forgiveness know what are the things we want them to forgive by saying it as many as you can. It's the best way rather than randomly say "please forgive me of all my wrong doing". In my family, the forgiving session is a teary time for us.



But in Islam, we don't have to wait for Aidilfitri to forgive anyone or seek for forgiveness. You should be doing it any time because you never know when you would be leaving the world and die before you are forgiven right? But what I'm trying to convey here is that Aidilfitri is at least the best time for you to do it.

Aidilfitri also encourages us to GIVE, sedekah. A gesture of giving people money especially the little kids. We called it duit raya a.k.a Raya money. It's a tradition where we give money to the kids when they visit our house. It's a form of sharing towards others.

So Aidilfitri is also the time where kids would be so happy to get 'duit raya' from the adults.

 

The sharing is also done in a from of serving dishes to the visitor. All kind of cookies, cakes, traditional food which some of them only appears only during Aidilfitri. As our teaching says your guests would bring along your sins out of your house, we are supposed to treat our guests in the best possible way.

Aidilfitri is also the time when you would visit your relatives, your family members, your neighbours your friends and your contacts. It's the time you should keep in touch with them. In arabic we called it "silaturrahim" that we should maintain as a muslim brethren.

Hence we are encourage to pay a visit to their houses during Hari Raya. At my place, there would be a huge group of people coming from door to door throughout the neighborhood. We will be served by various kind of food depending on the affordability of the family.



So, it doesn't mean that every house should be serving nice dishes, colourful cookies and so on. It's up to your affordability. You are encourage to serve the best dish you could afford but you shouldn't spend more than you could afford. Afterall the most important thing is that your intention is to share with others, serve them as best as you could but not to the extend where it burdens you =]

For my family, we would visit our grandparents first, then our uncles, aunties the other relatives. It's also the best medium to KNOW your relatives as you rarely spend time with them. It's usually the time where you should take note and remember the faces of your nieces, nephews, cousins and etc. If not, the family tree would stop there coz you never know who are your relatives.

It actually gives you a good feeling whenever you give money to the kids. It gives this kind of satisfaction regardless how much you give each and every one of them. It gives you the feeling "oh, I able to share with these children some rizq (wealth/salary)". And insyaAllah, by god will, HE will repay you back with limitless sustenance. So never worry that you would have less money if you give some to others.

During Aidilfitri, we are also obligated to pay a token of money as a zakat that would cleanse your rizq/income so Allah would bless you with more rizq and opportunities. The zakat is called zakat fitrah where we are supposed to pay from first ramadhan until before the Aidilfitri prayer. It's just a small amount that equals to 2.7kg of your daily rice price. Every Muslim has to pay this small amount so it can be channeled to the appropriate needy people. That's how Muslims take care among the needy.

So in short Aidilfitri is the time we have a joyous day, sharing with others, visiting others, forgiving others but at the same time we should never forget about others who didn't manage to celebrate it like us by paying the zakat hoping out of the money they could at least celebrate Aidilfitri as how they could afford. This is what Aidilftri means..at least from my own perception.



So from my family, my wife Cembam, Xiyad and I, we would like to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Please forgive us of what ever we did that might scratch your hear intentionally or unintentionally. Hope you guys had a nice Aidilfitri!!