Muslims around the world begin celebrating Eid al-Fitr as Ramadan comes to an end

Large parts parts of the Muslim world marked the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and ushered in the holiday of Eid al-Fitr today. 

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, and other Sunni Muslim countries including the United Arab Emirates and Jordan begin their celebrations today while those in Shiite Muslim majority nations will start the holiday on Saturday.

‘Friday is the first day of Eid al-Fitr for this year,’ with Thursday the last day of the holiday month of Ramadan, Saudi Arabia’s royal court said.

The timing of Eid al-Fitr is determined by the sighting of the crescent moon, in accordance with the Muslim lunar calendar. But Muslim religious authorities tend to disagree on the sighting of the moon, meaning Eid can be begin on different days for Sunnis and Shiites.  

Ramadan sees worshippers fasting daily from dawn to sunset, ending with the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which is normally celebrated with family gatherings. 

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Sudan also announced Eid al-Fitr will start on Friday.

Libya, ruled by two rival administrations, will mark Eid on Friday in the country’s east and on Saturday in areas under the control of the Tripoli-based government.

Statements from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, said Eid would start on Saturday in their countries.

Iraq’s Sunni authorities announced the holiday would begin Friday, while the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, set a Saturday start date. 

The governments of Lebanon and Syria, both in the throes of crippling economic crises, said Friday would mark the beginning of the dayslong holiday. 

In Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population worldwide, the second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah – with over 60 million members – said that according to its astronomical calculations, the holiday of Eid al-Fitr starts on Friday. 

However, the country’s religious affairs minister had announced on Thursday that the start of the holiday would fall on Saturday. 

The daytime fasting month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Observant Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk, and traditionally gather with family and friends to break their fast in the evening.

It is also a time for prayer, with the faithful converging in large numbers on mosques, especially at night.

Fasting is widely practised in Saudi Arabia, home of the holiest shrines in Islam in Mecca and Medina.

Saudis are expected to observe a four-day holiday for Eid al-Fitr.

This year again, the holiday comes amid fighting and devastation, particularly in the Middle East.

In Sudan, the holiday was eclipsed by raging battles between the army and its rival paramilitary force, despite two attempted cease-fires. The fighting since Saturday has killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands.

In Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, a stampede late Wednesday at a charitable event in the rebel-held capital of Sanaa killed at least 78 people and injured 77. 

In some places, tensions and fighting had calmed. Long-time Mideast rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed last month to restore diplomatic ties after China-brokered negotiations – an ongoing reconciliation that has deescalated proxy wars in the region.

Saudi officials and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen recently began talks in Sanaa and during the last days of Ramadan exchanged hundreds of prisoners captured in Yemen’s civil war, which erupted in 2014.

Riyadh also sent its top diplomat to Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad on Tuesday, a significant step towards ending his political isolation and potentially returning the war-torn country to the Arab League.

However, Tehran and Riyadh disagreed on the start of the holiday – for Saudis, Eid al-Fitr would begin Friday while officials in Iran said it starts on Saturday. 

The start of the holiday is traditionally based on sightings of the new moon, which vary according to geographic location, while some countries rely on astronomical calculations rather than physical sightings to determine the start of Eid al-Fitr.

United Arab Emirates and Qatar followed Saudi Arabia and announced the holiday would begin for them on Friday, while their Gulf Arab neighbor, Oman, declared that the moon had not been sighted and the holiday would begin on Saturday.

Indonesia’s Security Minister Mohammad Mahfud called on Muslims to be respectful of each other’s celebrations, and asked Muhammadiyah members to have their holiday feasts at home – in consideration of the Muslims who would still be fasting on Friday.

The country’s roads and highways were gridlocked as millions crammed into trains, ferries, busses and on motorcycles, as they left cities to return to their villages to celebrate with family. 

The government estimated that more than 123 million travellers were expected to crisscross the vast archipelago that spans 17,000 islands, with about 18 million departing from Jakarta’s greater metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, clerics of Pakistan’s state-backed moon sighting committee announced at a news conference in Islamabad that Eid al-Fitr would be celebrated on Saturday in Pakistan as there were no sightings of the moon there.

Egypt and Jordan said that for them, Eid al-Fitr would begin on Friday. In divided Libya, the religious authorities based in the capital of Tripoli, said it would start on Saturday. In the country’s east, run by a rival administration, authorities marked Friday as the start.

In Afghanistan, the head of the Taliban-appointed judiciary, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, also said the holiday would start on Friday.