I always struggle to explain Eid al-Adha. It’s not just the story of the holiday that’s inaccessible to your average American — at its meaty core is a tale of animal slaughter — but also its timeline. I explain that the holiday commemorates how willing a prophet was to sacrifice anything for God — including his own son. (Spoiler alert: He lives.)
So when is it? Someone always asks.
Well, we don’t know, I answer.
The Islamic calendar is lunar. The beginning of each month is determined by the sighting of a new moon. That is fundamentally at odds with the solar calendar that Pope Gregory XIII helped spread across the planet hundreds of years ago. As a result, Muslim holidays fall on a different spot on the Gregorian calendar every year.
This makes Eid al-Adha difficult to plan for. But the spontaneity can also make celebrating it feel a little giddy, in the same way that taking a random personal day or heading out the door with no clear destination can. Depending on where you live, Eid al-Adha celebrations could involve slaughtering a goat, making a donation to charity or attending morning prayers. For me, it’s an occasion to get together with loved ones. Celebrating Eid whenever it comes, whether the timing is convenient or not, is a small refusal to be governed — by our workplaces, of course, but also by all the systems that regulate us.
We live in a world where our experience of time is inextricably bound up with work, and often in hyper regimented ways. Some preindustrial cultures, the historian E.P. Thompson wrote, measured their day by tasks, like how long it takes to cook rice. Now it’s measured for us by our employers.
We might sneak life in on the weekends, in the evenings. We might sneak a little bit more life in on vacations — often meticulously planned months in advance, around the preferences and requirements of our workplace — or on federally recognized holidays. (And without labor movements, we probably wouldn’t even have some of those concessions.) In a world where only the privileged have the freedom to organize their time, the celebration of a floating holiday becomes a mini-rebellion.
Religion means many different things to many different people, but for me, that view resonates with some bigger subversive — if not straight-up anticapitalist — ideas in Islam as a whole. Take the mandate to pay a percentage of your earnings every year to those in need. It’s a great reminder that whoever dies with the most toys does not, in fact, win. Also, many Muslims believe that charging or receiving interest is haram, or forbidden.
On a one-to-one basis, opting out of something that feels exploitative is a way to honor one another’s humanity. Scale it up, however, and it pretty quickly becomes a challenge to the system responsible for global financial crises and widespread suffering, under which average citizens pay to bail out billionaires — both on land and in the depths of the ocean — while struggling to keep their own heads above water.
When you are a Muslim in America, you have many opportunities to consider the difference between your beliefs and those of the people around you. Taking time off to celebrate Eid al-Adha (or its sister holiday, Eid al-Fitr, which ends Ramadan) is one such opportunity. So is the beginning of Ramadan itself, the holy month during which many Muslims try to juggle fasting days and praying nights with regular work. Managing these obligations and the sacrifices they compel is a challenge that registers on a bodily level.
There are no Muslim federal holidays in the United States. Yes, it’s nice for presidents to wax poetic about how Eid al-Fitr “marks a new beginning for each individual.” But for Muslims who can’t afford or aren’t allowed to miss a day of work, Eid is just the “new beginning” of another eight-hour shift.
Every year, I decide on the fly whether to take the day off. In college, I worried about missing exams that would be a nightmare to reschedule. In workplaces, I worried about asking on relatively short notice.
Dozens of cities have recently worked to recognize Eid. Last year, Dearborn, Mich., became the first city in the United States to make Eid al-Fitr a paid day off for municipal employees. In 2015, New York added both Eids to the public school calendar. That battle was hard-fought, and personal to me.
For context, I grew up in Astoria, Queens, one of the most diverse neighborhoods not just in New York City but in the entire country. My elementary school had so many Muslim students that we would decorate for Eid. Despite all of the shiny dollar-store crescent moons strung along the banisters, when the actual day rolled around, school was technically in session. I’m sure it was one of the year’s lowest attendance days.
Every year, Eid al-Adha catches me by surprise. Unlike my ancestors, I do not have a conscious connection with the moon. I could not tell you where we are in its cycle. I do not know how its light moves through space, where it goes. Except for the occasional Muslim holiday, my time is no longer organized by a community of people looking above.
I find out when Eid is because my parents shoot me a text. And then it’s an opportunity to look up from the daily hustle. It’s a reminder, if not a suggestion: Maybe the schedule I think about every day isn’t the most important one. Maybe I’m also on another calendar, on a different timeline. In a different year entirely. I have all day to think about it.
Romaissaa Benzizoune is an editorial fellow in Opinion.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Eid Does Not Care About Your Schedule. That’s So Liberating.
Opinion | Eid Does Not Care About Your Schedule. That’s So Liberating.
I always struggle to explain Eid al-Adha. It’s not just the story of the holiday that’s inaccessible to your average American — at its meaty core is a tale of animal slaughter — but also its timeline. I explain that the holiday commemorates how willing a prophet was to sacrifice anything for God — including his own son. (Spoiler alert: He lives.)
So when is it? Someone always asks.
Well, we don’t know, I answer.
The Islamic calendar is lunar. The beginning of each month is determined by the sighting of a new moon. That is fundamentally at odds with the solar calendar that Pope Gregory XIII helped spread across the planet hundreds of years ago. As a result, Muslim holidays fall on a different spot on the Gregorian calendar every year.
This makes Eid al-Adha difficult to plan for. But the spontaneity can also make celebrating it feel a little giddy, in the same way that taking a random personal day or heading out the door with no clear destination can. Depending on where you live, Eid al-Adha celebrations could involve slaughtering a goat, making a donation to charity or attending morning prayers. For me, it’s an occasion to get together with loved ones. Celebrating Eid whenever it comes, whether the timing is convenient or not, is a small refusal to be governed — by our workplaces, of course, but also by all the systems that regulate us.
We live in a world where our experience of time is inextricably bound up with work, and often in hyper regimented ways. Some preindustrial cultures, the historian E.P. Thompson wrote, measured their day by tasks, like how long it takes to cook rice. Now it’s measured for us by our employers.
We might sneak life in on the weekends, in the evenings. We might sneak a little bit more life in on vacations — often meticulously planned months in advance, around the preferences and requirements of our workplace — or on federally recognized holidays. (And without labor movements, we probably wouldn’t even have some of those concessions.) In a world where only the privileged have the freedom to organize their time, the celebration of a floating holiday becomes a mini-rebellion.
Religion means many different things to many different people, but for me, that view resonates with some bigger subversive — if not straight-up anticapitalist — ideas in Islam as a whole. Take the mandate to pay a percentage of your earnings every year to those in need. It’s a great reminder that whoever dies with the most toys does not, in fact, win. Also, many Muslims believe that charging or receiving interest is haram, or forbidden.
On a one-to-one basis, opting out of something that feels exploitative is a way to honor one another’s humanity. Scale it up, however, and it pretty quickly becomes a challenge to the system responsible for global financial crises and widespread suffering, under which average citizens pay to bail out billionaires — both on land and in the depths of the ocean — while struggling to keep their own heads above water.
When you are a Muslim in America, you have many opportunities to consider the difference between your beliefs and those of the people around you. Taking time off to celebrate Eid al-Adha (or its sister holiday, Eid al-Fitr, which ends Ramadan) is one such opportunity. So is the beginning of Ramadan itself, the holy month during which many Muslims try to juggle fasting days and praying nights with regular work. Managing these obligations and the sacrifices they compel is a challenge that registers on a bodily level.
There are no Muslim federal holidays in the United States. Yes, it’s nice for presidents to wax poetic about how Eid al-Fitr “marks a new beginning for each individual.” But for Muslims who can’t afford or aren’t allowed to miss a day of work, Eid is just the “new beginning” of another eight-hour shift.
Every year, I decide on the fly whether to take the day off. In college, I worried about missing exams that would be a nightmare to reschedule. In workplaces, I worried about asking on relatively short notice.
Dozens of cities have recently worked to recognize Eid. Last year, Dearborn, Mich., became the first city in the United States to make Eid al-Fitr a paid day off for municipal employees. In 2015, New York added both Eids to the public school calendar. That battle was hard-fought, and personal to me.
For context, I grew up in Astoria, Queens, one of the most diverse neighborhoods not just in New York City but in the entire country. My elementary school had so many Muslim students that we would decorate for Eid. Despite all of the shiny dollar-store crescent moons strung along the banisters, when the actual day rolled around, school was technically in session. I’m sure it was one of the year’s lowest attendance days.
Every year, Eid al-Adha catches me by surprise. Unlike my ancestors, I do not have a conscious connection with the moon. I could not tell you where we are in its cycle. I do not know how its light moves through space, where it goes. Except for the occasional Muslim holiday, my time is no longer organized by a community of people looking above.
I find out when Eid is because my parents shoot me a text. And then it’s an opportunity to look up from the daily hustle. It’s a reminder, if not a suggestion: Maybe the schedule I think about every day isn’t the most important one. Maybe I’m also on another calendar, on a different timeline. In a different year entirely. I have all day to think about it.
Romaissaa Benzizoune is an editorial fellow in Opinion.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article