This year, Eid ul Fitr is likely to be celebrated on or around Sunday 1 May 2022. The exact date will be decided after the sighting of the moon of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. Eid ul Fitr is also known as the ‘festival of breaking the fast’ – one of the biggest festivals in Islam.

On this day, Muslim people will dress in smart attire and attend an early morning ‘Eid Namaz’ prayer service at their local Mosque. Muslims will also have given money to charities that feed the poor throughout the whole of Ramadan as well as on Eid ul Fitr. The greeting used for this special day is known as ‘Eid Mubarak’.

Rabia is a clinical practitioner and nurse based in our Clinical Hub and she talks about Ramadan and Eid.

“Eid is usually celebrated with family after Eid Prayer at the Mosque. The first day my husband, son and I visit my in-laws in Yorkshire and spend time with them, we then visit my family in Rochdale. We celebrate with lots of food, everyone usually brings a dish (popular dishes are samosas, biryani, curries and Asian sweets) and we also share amongst the community with neighbours. We also visit the graveyard and spend the next day making rounds to extended family and friends’ houses. We don’t exchange gifts, but children are usually gifted money from elders.”

We would like to wish all our Muslim staff a very warm and heartfelt ‘Eid Mubarak’.