My understanding is that Sunday, May 1, will be the last day of Ramadan this year.
I have an acquaintance who I will be seeing on Sunday. I looked online and I found that Eid Mubarak is a customary greeting at the end of Ramadan. I plan on saying it to my acquaintance as a social courtesy but it’s not a custom I follow and I want to check to make sure I understand the usage. So I’d appreciate information on any of the following:
Is May 1 the end of Ramadan? I know the end of the month can move and it might end on May 2.
I will be seeing this acquaintance during the daytime on May 1 and I believe Ramadan doesn’t end until sunset. Is it appropriate to offer an end of Ramadan greeting before it has actually ended?
Is Eid Mubarak a common greeting or is it something archaic or unusual that nobody says in 2022?
Is Eid Mubarak a specifically Arabic greeting? I believe my acquaintance speaks Arabic but his ethnic background is Indian.
Is it appropriate for a non-Muslim like myself to greet a Muslim like this?
Am I overthinking this? Yes. But I’m trying to be courteous and I don’t want to go in the opposite direction. And learning new knowledge is good for its own sake.
I am not Muslim but grew up in a country that was 97% Muslim and most of my friends to this day are Muslim.
Eid is almost certainly going to be on May 2 in most Muslim traditions in the US.
Not really, but not a big deal. It’s like wishing a coworker Merry Christmas on Dec 23 as you are all leaving for the holidays. But I think Muslims will not greet each until after Eid prayers on Eid day. Similar to how Catholics would not say Merry Christmas until they’ve attended Christmas Mass. But they are going to cut non-Muslims a LOT of slack. Evidence: I still have lots of Muslim friends and I’m sure I’ve said and done numerous offensive things. If I really screw up, they will tell me, usually very gently.
Absolutely appropriate.
It’s more or less universal, I think. Certainly people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Uzbekistan use Eid Mubarak.
Absolutely. As long as they have no reason to suspect you’re not mocking them in some way, it will be very well received.
It’s Eid Mubarak in many places, and it is something that will be more or less universally understood even if the place has a different term for Eid greetings.
For instance in Pashto it’s “Akhtar-e-Mubaraksha”, but everyone will understand and be happy with Eid Muabark.
There are a few things that Catholics wouldn’t say in advance of the relevant date, but they’re mostly related to Easter, and mostly things that neither we nor anyone else is likely to say outside of church. “He is risen indeed, alleluia”. “Merry Christmas”, though, is something that anyone in the Western world might say to anyone else, at any time roughly close to Christmas.
Yep. In Cape Town’s Malay community, Eid al-Fitr is also known as Labarang and most Cape Malays would colloquially say Slamat for Labarang instead, but the newpapers and public announcemets would all say Eid Mubarak and the non-Malay Muslims would definitely use that.
