Notes from an Eid Afternoon
/From Between the Moon and the Setting Sun
It was the first day of Eid-ul-adha here yesterday.
The day arrived wrapped in gold after days of repeated rain and heavy skies. Sunlight poured over everything, and the rays that fell upon our mossy ground outside, piercing through the canopy of dense leaves, looked like scattered gold coins. From my room upstairs, I looked out the window, and the clean green leaves appeared beautiful, each one coated in golden sunlight. The warmth of the sun felt gentle and comforting, not harsh.
Usually, I go to the rooftop in the late evenings, but that day nostalgia pulled me there earlier. I remembered the afternoons I once spent watching the sky for hours, studying clouds, and waiting patiently for sunsets. So I returned to that old habit.
The sun had turned a deep orange by then, slowly descending near two coconut trees, though it was still so bright that it appeared almost yellowish-white. The sky around it was marked with its colour. On the other side, the pale moon had already risen, looking like a broken piece of a white candle resting upon the bed of blue and cotton clouds. At first it appeared matte, yet very lovely.
Women chatted on nearby rooftops. Children, dressed beautifully, wandered about enjoying their time. Later, one of my uncles came, he called me and greeted me. After hearing me return his greeting, someone -most likely from the kids nearby shouted “Eid Mubaarak!” I could not identify who it was, but I greeted them back anyway looking at their group, whoever it was.
Slowly, evening began covering the afternoon gracefully. The orange tint of the sunset deepened and spread richer across the horizon, announcing the steady arrival of night. And as the sky darkened, the moon grew brighter and brighter until it resembled a luminous pearl suspended within a vast ocean of deepening blue.
I looked down at my hand. The pearl ring -touched with a faint warm pink and gifted to me by my mother, my hand, my clothes, all of it had absorbed the shade of the sky itself. Everything was painted in the same dusky colour and rose-tinted light. For a moment I simply stared, mesmerized. In that light, I thought I had never looked lovelier. The same way these creations appeared adorned by the beauty الله Had Poured into the world that evening, at that moment, I too felt included within it.
The sky continued darkening. From nearby mosques muaddhins called out for Maghrib, their voices echoing one after another through the evening air. The call to prayer. The call to success. The invitation to turn toward the One Who Created the sunset, the moon, the wind, the stars, and every delicate beauty that leaves the human heart trembling in awe.
The weather was not very cool, yet cool breezes could be felt now and then. Most birds had already returned to their resting places, and the few remaining ones hurried across the fading sky. The evening star that kept shining alone was soon joined by others as the night slowly unveiled its little jewels.
I stood there for as long as I could, watching the world transform moment by moment... سبحان الله
How breathtaking this dunya can be despite all its impermanence, despite all its grief and exhaustion. Sometimes beauty arrives so intensely that one almost wishes to disappear into it completely, to flee and spend life wandering beneath skies like these. Yet every beautiful thing in this world is nothing compared to the beauty of Jannah. If a temporary world can hold sunsets this tender, a moon this luminous, and moments that make the soul ache with wonder, then what must Jannah be like?
May الله Make us among its inhabitants, where beauty never fades, nothing ever ends in sorrow, and hearts never fear losing what they love. And above all, may we be Granted the greatest delight of all: to see our رب, The Most Beautiful One.