‘Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Hari Raya Puasa, literally “Fasting Day of Celebration” is the Malay term for the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Fitri. That is the time when we meet each other we would say “Selamat Hari Raya” which is the main greeting used by Muslims in Malaysia even in Singapore. Another greeting is “maaf zahir dan batin” which means “I seek for forgiveness from you physically and spiritually”, for “Hari Raya” is a time to reconcile and renew relationships with others.
Hearing the ‘takbir’ recitation from each mosque nearby, I prepared myself, ready to drive to there. That was the first day of “Hari Raya”,1 Syawal. That’s the time when my heart felt very sad, extremely sad due to the soft recitation of “takbir”, ‘tasbih” and “tahmid” at that particular time. Everyone seems to be with their fathers. Everyone seems to celebrate the “Eid” without any difficulties and happily. After the events in the mosque came to the end, everyone started to walk, away from the mosque. I could see some people heading to the grave of their loved ones, performing the recital of "Yasin"(a chapter or surah from the Quran) and also the "tahlil" or prayers for the deceased. All these are done in hope that their loved ones are blessed by Allah and they are spared from the punishment in the grave. Most people however, made their way to their home, getting ready to start visiting their relatives respectively.
My family and I together made our steps to our home. The first day of the”Eid” was the toughest day for me but the joyous day for my little brothers and sisters as the adults were extra generous for the day. Children will be given token sums of money, also known as “duit raya” from their parents and elders. On the first day of “Hari Raya”, at about 10 a.m, my journey was about to start. Our first destination is that my grandfather’s house since it is compulsory or “wajib” to seek for forgiveness from the oldest or elders of ours by kissing their hands as a sign of respect. And then we continued visiting our siblings of our grandparent nearby. I feel very lucky as we did not have to travel many miles as most of our relatives stayed in the same place even in the same village as well. We had made or steps to our “Mak long” house, our “Pak De” and others that I could not recognise as well as my mother did. Everyone seemed to dress in “Baju Melayu” for the males and “Baju Kurung”, the quintessential Malay attire, for females. Asking for pardon could be seen almost everywhere which was done in order of seniority. And that was the beauty in Islam.
And the same thing happened on the next day. And now was the third day of ‘eid’, the most valuable and precious day in spare of my life. My former high school, Sheikh Abdul Malek School had held an ‘eid’ celebration in conjunction with Hari Raya Aidilfitri. That was the time that my ‘miss’ was seemed like to be treated as I could finally meet my former best friends including Irshaduddin, Safwan, Alim, and so forth. To my pleasure, they were all had been considered as my brothers as well especially Irshaduddin and Adri. Nothing I could say about them as they were too precious to me since we were in high school till this moment although we were not in the same university. And one thing which makes sense that is ‘ukhwah fillah’. Thank you Allah!!!
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