Here S To An Up To Date Raya With Disclaimers

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Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri everybody. Maaf Zahir dan Batin.
That was simple enough. I’ve been saying that for years. It feels easier on my tongue than the more Arabicised greetings we hear often nowadays. It feels nice and lovely the way baju kurung and kebaya look nice and lovely, even if they, like this particular greeting, are rather going out of fashion.
Should I have added “to those who’re celebrating”?
I’m not sure, really. That does seem to be more politically correct and increasingly has become the norm at the end of most greetings for just about any religious celebration nowadays. Perhaps I should’ve put it in just to be on the safe side.
But nahhhh…that would just make it clunky and sound insincere and spoil the cadence of such a lovely, time-honoured greeting. If it’s really necessary, such as when somebody decrees it must be so, then perhaps I can say:
“Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri Everybody*. Maaf Zahir Dan Batin**”
*This greeting does not apply where prohibited by law, customs or decrees. Where it’s allowed, its meaning shall not exceed that of the normal and customary polite-but-insincere greetings we make during major religious festivities.
**Said request for forgiveness of mistakes, whether of the outer physical body or of the inner spiritual soul, as contained in sentence no. 2 (two) is not legally binding and does not apply to any debts, outstanding loans or anything of monetary value, unless expressly specified in writing***
Ads by Kiosked***While the Quran assigns specific meanings to Zahir and Batin, we’d probably use it any way we want because everybody knows we don’t really mean them anyway****
****Thank you for reading the asterisks.
A joyous occasion for all
Greetings aside, Hari Raya Aidil Fitri really is a joyous occasion for many. It marks a celebration of a month of fighting worldly temptations. It’s indeed a time to celebrate and plump ourselves full of good food, even for those who actually gained weight during the fasting month.
I’ll not bore you with my usual story of growing up poor in the kampung and celebrating Hari Raya deep in the swamps of coastal Penang, trapping poisonous catfish with my bare hands, because you’d never believe me anyway. I’ll bring it up next year instead.
I’ll talk instead of the perennial joy of Hari Raya eve in the kampung – the anticipation and the waiting for the declaration of the Hari Raya date, which occasionally would turn the Hari Raya eve into the eve-of-the-eve instead.
Ads by KioskedWe’d have the usual Hari Raya eve stuff ready: the copper pot for the dodol, tender coconut fronds for the ketupat, and mounds of firewood that will burn all night cooking these delicious Raya goodies.
Getting the date right
This year there’s been much speculation about the Raya date, prompting a minister to warn the populace, presumably Muslims, non-Muslims and chatbots too, from making fun about the process of determining the date.
Unfortunately for the minister, such an announcement just focuses people’s attention on the matter instead, whereas they may have just ignored it otherwise. Now everybody is breathlessly waiting for an idiot to say or do something outrageous about it and get into trouble.
That wouldn’t be me. The fact that we mere humans aren’t able to agree on how to set the date for some heavenly-mandated event or celebration is nothing new, especially when using the lunar calendar.
I’d say it’s fair enough to take a view of the new moon to declare the start of the lunar month, whether Ramadan for fasting or Syawal for its end. After all, the new moon wouldn’t be the new moon unless it is actually there!
Ads by KioskedThe Arabs in the early days of Islam were some of the world’s best astronomers, given clear, dry desert air for viewing the sky, plus the life-and-death need for them to accurately navigate across the vast expanse of deserts with only the heavens as a guide.
They would certainly have approved had we used our modern knowledge and tools, such as mobile phones more powerful than supercomputers of a generation ago, to calculate the appearance of the new moon.
Bad weather? Well, that was not much of a problem in the Middle East then and now, but even so, not a big problem for us here either, as we can send an aircraft 50,000 feet above the weather to view it.
Putting technology to work
With the advances of modern technology, we can even put powerful cameras to the telescopes and live stream it to everybody. We can use AI (Artificial Intelligence, not Adzhar Ibrahim) to help identify the new moon, after which humans can verify it. With an audience of millions likely to be watching the live stream, there’s no chance of anybody not agreeing with the finding.
It’ll also give the kids of today something to brag about to their own grandchildren about how tough life was during the 2020s, watching for the new moon on tiny 4000k OLED mobile screens which weren’t even embedded in our eyeballs! Oh, how lucky the current generations are, and that’s before we even talk about catching poisonous catfish in the swamps.
Ads by KioskedShould we use such tools – powerful telescopes, livestreaming, AI etc? Why not? We already use telescopes, and we already calculate the prayer times using computers. Some people may be worried about having their jobs taken over by AI, but I’m already retired, plus who isn’t afraid of Artificial Intelligence nowadays?
A testing time for all
The lunar month can be tricky. The Chinese define the lunar year differently from the Muslims, and throw in the odd month every few years to make the lunar year in sync with the solar year. Ever the practical people, if I may say so without sounding condescending or patronising.
Christians. too, fix some important dates by the moon, as with the sun, and the earth’s rotation too, as a Sunday and a full moon and an equinox all figure in some important calculations. Even then, Easter, and also Christmas, is still celebrated on different days in some parts of the world.
Trying to be logical about some of these things is not easy. Religion is about faith, about believing without requiring evidence. It’s something deep inside us that we feel certain about, and that gives us strength to face life and its vicissitudes.
Ramadan is about showing that we’re able to last a whole month of trials of our desires, endurance and humility. We’ll celebrate its true meaning even if we’ve to do it in the confines of a 5-star hotel while nervously waiting to hear the news about the sighting of the moon.
Ads by KioskedAnd with that, Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin*, to everybody, one and all**
*Except where prohibited by law, customs or decree.
**Excluding chatbots.
 - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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