Millions celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr across India
10 Aug 2013 5:35 AM IST
Millions of Muslims celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr with joy and traditional gaiety across India, home to the world’s second largest Muslim population. The young and old thronged mosques big and small in hundreds of cities and towns in the morning for the main prayers, the festivities disrupted in some areas by monsoon rains.
Eid, also known as ‘Meethi Eid’ (Sweet Eid), marks the end of a month of Ramadan fasting. Some 40-50,000 thronged the 17th century Fatehpuri mosque in Old Delhi, the mass packing the redstone building’s corridors and balconies and also the many roads and lanes around it. ‘We prayed for the welfare of all people and the country,’ Naib Imam Moulvi Mohammed Mouzzam Ahmed said, ‘Once the prayers got over, many Hindus and Sikhs came in to hug their Muslim brothers.’
Similar scenes were replicated all across the country, from Jammu and Kashmir in the northern tip to Tamil Nadu in the deep south and from Assam in the northeast to Gujarat on the west coast.
Muslims in Kerala celebrated Eid a day earlier. For the first time in years, Eid fell on a Friday, making it twice as auspicious, Shabbir Somji, senior member of Khoja Asla Ashri Jamaat, said in Mumbai. At the historic Burha Jame Mosque in Guwahati, Imam Anowar Hussain led the prayers. ‘We prayed for lasting peace in Assam,’ Hussain said. He added: ‘The true meaning of Islam in peace.’
In Mumbai, lakhs of Muslims trooped out of their homes at dawn to the nearest mosque to offer the thanksgiving “khutba”. Similar prayer meetings were also held all over Maharashtra.
Tens of thousands of Muslims offered ‘Namaz-e-Eid’ at Eidgahs or open grounds and mosques in Andhra Pradesh. Over three lakh people gathered in Hyderabad’s historic Miralam Eidgah.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah offered prayers at the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar.
Eid, also known as ‘Meethi Eid’ (Sweet Eid), marks the end of a month of Ramadan fasting. Some 40-50,000 thronged the 17th century Fatehpuri mosque in Old Delhi, the mass packing the redstone building’s corridors and balconies and also the many roads and lanes around it. ‘We prayed for the welfare of all people and the country,’ Naib Imam Moulvi Mohammed Mouzzam Ahmed said, ‘Once the prayers got over, many Hindus and Sikhs came in to hug their Muslim brothers.’
Similar scenes were replicated all across the country, from Jammu and Kashmir in the northern tip to Tamil Nadu in the deep south and from Assam in the northeast to Gujarat on the west coast.
Muslims in Kerala celebrated Eid a day earlier. For the first time in years, Eid fell on a Friday, making it twice as auspicious, Shabbir Somji, senior member of Khoja Asla Ashri Jamaat, said in Mumbai. At the historic Burha Jame Mosque in Guwahati, Imam Anowar Hussain led the prayers. ‘We prayed for lasting peace in Assam,’ Hussain said. He added: ‘The true meaning of Islam in peace.’
In Mumbai, lakhs of Muslims trooped out of their homes at dawn to the nearest mosque to offer the thanksgiving “khutba”. Similar prayer meetings were also held all over Maharashtra.
Tens of thousands of Muslims offered ‘Namaz-e-Eid’ at Eidgahs or open grounds and mosques in Andhra Pradesh. Over three lakh people gathered in Hyderabad’s historic Miralam Eidgah.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Omar Abdullah offered prayers at the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar.
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