Eid e Ghadeer

Eid e Ghadeer is the anniversary of the appointment of the successor to the Holy Prophet. It happened on the way back from the Holy Prophet's last pilgrimage to Makkah before he died.

As is the tradition at school, we had a 'jashn' (celebration gathering) to mark this. Now I don't really want to get into the usual sunni-shia arguments that usually happen around this time of year, so any comments posted on the blog along these lines will be deleted. During the celebration, I noticed that all the girls just went crazy shouting out Imam Ali's name and cheering and it made me reflect a little about how things are 'back home' in the West.

Don't get me wrong, I loved living in London. But when we have celebrations and commemorations of Islamic significance, it makes me appreciate living here in Qum a little more. And this is something I'm really going to miss when we move back to London (or Toronto depending on whether The Husband or I get their way!). Every happy or sad occaison is marked with coloured or black flags in the streets. And happy occaisons find the streets of Qum decorated with lights.

The thing which really made me ponder was hearing my fellow students cheer for Imam Ali with such enthusiasm. Muslim children back home rarely have such enthusiasm for our Islamic Heros. They would most likely be found cheering for football teams, X-factor or the latest Big Brother wannabe. Maybe we've forgotten who the real stars are... the ones that will help us achieve eternal success. The role models we should be following... not the ones who encourage us to be the next talentless reality show moron.

It made me wonder where we've gone wrong? Have we moved to the West to make better lives for ourselves and children and in the process forgotton our basic values and principles? I was ashamed to see the state of our community on my last visit back home. Many of the kids/teenagers had no sense of what was haram and halal.

Anyway, thats today's rant over with... now lets get back to celebrating Eid! The tradition is that Sayyids - decendants of the Holy Prophet and Imams - give presents to non-sayyids. So email me at qum_girl @ hotmail . com and I'll send you my address to post my pressie to!