大象传媒

Good morning.
听
The fasting month of Ramadan, now drawing to its close, has been a season of austerity and prayer. It ends, however, with one of the two great festivals of our calendar, the Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast.听 The religious ceremony on the day is short and simple, and the day is mainly passed in eating, giving gifts to children, and visiting relatives and friends.
听
And yet the religious ceremony lies at the heart of what Eid is about. Like the other major rituals of Islam, it is simple, and notably timeless, its form and words unchanged since the days of the founder of the religion. This adds a unifying and familiar note, especially important to congregations like mine, which includes over seventy different nationalities.
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But familiarity is only part of it. Of course, it is pleasant and somehow reassuring to join in a practice remembered from early childhood, and which, we hope, will be followed identically by one鈥檚 distant descendants. In the midst of a changing world, it is comforting to know that some things are utterly stable...