Eid is a time for action
The ummah is deeply wounded and severely humiliated. Nowhere was this more amplified than at a mosque in Kuwait a month ago, when 27 Shia Muslims performing their Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadaan were killed by an Islamic State bomber. Two weeks ago, a Saudi airstrike on a livestock market in Fayyoush, southern Yemen, killed 45 civilians.
The main aim of fasting during Ramadaan is to develop self-restraint: if a human being can control the basic desire to eat and drink, then they should be able to control all other desires and temptations.
The attacks during Ramadaan indicate we have still not learnt to quell our desire for power. The splattering of Muslim blood will not be halted during Eid.
Ongoing Saudi-led bombing sprees against Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen are as heinous as the attack on the Imam Jaffar as-Sadiq Mosque, and reveal the deepening sectarian divide in the Muslim world. The indignity of suffering is compounded by rhetoric which defames victims as “bad Muslims”.
Eight-thousand kilometres separate us and the Rohingya Muslims facing persecution at the hands of Myanmar’s military dictatorship. The besieged Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are virtually cut off from the world.
A genocidal campaign, constituting “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Genocide Watch, is being waged against the Muslim population of the Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia.
We wish all Muslims around the world a joyous Eid. But, this must be a time for deep introspection for anyone who considers themselves part of the ummah of Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).
We must feel the pain of others and act. If we do not, Eid this year will remain an empty ritual of feasts and new clothes for Muslims.
The authors are members of Media Review Network, a Joburg-based advocacy group.