ZAMBOANGA CITY -- At least 300,000 Muslim residents comprising an estimated one third of Zamboanga City’s one million people celebrated the grand Islamic feast of Eid’l Fitr last Friday (June 15) by holding early-morning outdoor congregational prayer assemblies at the mosques found around the city’s 98 barangays.
The feast, one of two most important in Islam, marks the end of the month-long fasting month of Ramadan and falls on the first day of the Hijrah month of Shawwal.
In pre-dominantly Christian Philippines, it is the only feast observed as a national holiday.
Wearing their best traditional prayer vestments, Muslim men, women and children – mostly to comprise all members of the family – attended the elaborate prayer rituals that lasted for as long as an hour.
Women assembled behind their men, as custom dictates. One congregational prayer was held at the picturesque coastal boulevard of Cawa-Cawa.
After the prayers, families exchanged home visits to trade gifts and renew social relationships. This is conducted for as long as three days.
“Ramadan 2018 now exits but the blessed Eid’lFitri enters this beautiful city with all its blessedness, and the mercy of Allah pours upon all of us on this day, and the years to come,” said Hadji Ali Yacub, chairman of the city’s Indigenous People’s Council of Leaders, in his Hariraya Puasa.
“We pray that the merits of fasting of all the faithful Muslims may indeed be the cause this mercy and benevolence, Inshallah. Let us greet each other with Eid Mubarak (blessed Eid),” he added.
“This year’s celebration is indeed timely and relevant, as the Filipino nation starts a fresh move towards peace, stability, development and progress under a new leadership,” President Rodrigo Duterte, for his part, said.
“May the sense of discipline the Holy Month of Ramadhan has taught and nurtured among Muslims inspire all the members of the Muslim Filipino communities to unite with other Filipinos to achieve lasting peace, political stability, economic growth and development,” Duterte said in a statement.
The Duterte administration is in a final legislative push to enact the passage of the long-delayed Bangsamoro Basic Law that will establish a new autonomous regional government in Mindanao to end the decades-old Moro rebellion there.
During the last week of the Ramadan, Zamboanga City mayor Ma. Isabel Climaco Salazar and congressman Celso Lobregat sponsored separate breaking of the fast ceremonies called Iftar for their Muslim constituents.
“We are one with the Muslim community we want to spread the message of greater understanding towards different cultures in Zamboanga,” Salazar said during the ceremony.
Zamboanga is home to several Muslim and indigenous tribes.
During the Ramadan month, various non-government organizations also donated commodities to local Muslims as a form of zakat (Islamic tax) as well as to support them in their fasting regimens.
Among the donors was Sulu political stalwart Sakur Tan, whose 11-day caravan, dubbed as “The Bangsa SugIftar for the Youth, the Displaced and the Marginalized” benefited some 10,000 internally displaced persons victimized by the 2013 Moro National Liberation Front siege on Zamboanga City. (Rey-Luis Banagudos/PNA)
