With communal prayers, sweet treats and large family gatherings, Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk.
In some countries, such as Indonesia, the festivities appeared to return to their pre-pandemic levels, after two years of muted celebrations under the shadow of COVID-19.
In others, the holiday was dampened either directly or indirectly by the war in Ukraine. The conflict has sent global food prices soaring. Inside Ukraine, some members of the country’s small yet diverse Muslim population gathered for morning prayers at the Islamic Cultural Center in the capital, Kyiv.
In interviews in the Ukrainian city of Lviv last month, Arab Muslim immigrants to Ukraine said they could not imagine leaving their adopted country.
- “Where there is war, you’ll find a Palestinian, a Yemeni and a Syrian,” Vail Albekhesi, 51, a Palestinian who has lived in Ukraine since 1989, told The Washington Post. “So here we are in Ukraine.”
Because Russia and Ukraine supply much of the world’s wheat, the war has driven up the cost of the global food staple.
Wheat prices have risen in many Muslim countries as a result, including Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Pakistan; Egypt last year was the biggest importer of Ukrainian wheat.
In Syria, commodity prices have skyrocketed as the country grapples with sanctions and an economic downturn across the border in Lebanon.
Still, communities came together to celebrate the holiday.
Mahmoud al-Madhoun, a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip, was shopping for ingredients to make Eid cookies. He told the Associated Press that the financial situation there was getting worse.
“However, we are determined to rejoice,” he said.
In Afghanistan, people cautiously celebrated Eid for the first time since the Taliban seized control in August. Over the past few weeks, the country has suffered a spate of deadly bombings, including at mosques in Kabul, Kunduz and Mazar-e Sharif.
Compounding Afghanistan’s woes is the fact that the vast majority of Afghans are experiencing food shortages, according to the United Nations.
The hunger crisis there began before the war in Ukraine, in part because the international community, including the United States, cut off assistance to Afghanistan once the Taliban took power.
At the Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Jakarta, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, tens of thousands of people congregated for Eid prayers this year. The crowds were a major break from the past two years, when the mosque was shuttered and then closed to communal prayers. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country and millions of Indonesians traveled from urban centers back to their hometowns to celebrate.
Source: Sammy Westfall – The Washington Post
- Hannah Allam and Sarah Dadouch contributed to this report.
Header: Syrian children gather at an amusement park in Maarat Misrin in Idlib province during Eid al-Fitr on May 2. (Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP/Getty Images)