For a look at Eid in Ramallah in photos and video, see my Flickr feed here.
With as much or more fanfare as Christmas in the US, Eid al Adha has been in the air in Ramallah for the past week. Islam’s biggest holiday, Eid al Adha, or feast of the sacrifice, commemorates the Biblical and Quranic story of Abraham taking his son to the mountain to sacrifice him as a test from God, before God replaces his son with a sheep at the last moment.
The week before the Eid is the time Muslim pilgrims make the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia as the Prophet Mohammad did at the dawn of the religion — one of the five pillars of Islam. Today is Eid, marking the end of the Hajj pilgrimage and a holy day off for the whole Muslim world. The other Muslim holy day, (Eid al Fitr, or breaking fast) comes at the end of the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.
It’s a festive time of wonderful traditions. All week, Ramallah has been bustling, packed with shoppers from the surrounding villages. The streets around the Manara circle (the town square, basically) have been blocked off to cars and instead filled with street vendors peddling everything from fruit to socks to incense (and lots and lots of colorful helium balloons for the kiddies) and families toting bags from the hundreds of boutiques that make up the West Bank’s commercial center.
At times like these, there is no doubt that Ramallah is indeed the financial and cultural capital of Palestine. It also presents a beautiful image of Palestinians, who are too often maligned in photos and videos only depicting them as masked gunmen or Muslim extremists. Here, in Ramallah on Eid, is a far truer picture of Palestinians: a spirited, social and hospitable nation who cherish the threads of shared traditions and cultures of their land.
Muslim, Christian, Palestinian or visitor — everyone feels and shares in the traditions of Eid here to some extent. Keep reading for a description of Eid day.
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