Muslims celebrate the festival of Aidilfitri and known as Hari Raya Puasa is to mark the culmination of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. It is a joyous occasion for Muslim, as it signifies a personal triumph, a victory of self restraint and abstinence, symbolic purification and renewal. Fasting during the month of Ramadan is compulsory, whereby Muslims are required to abstain from satisfying their most basic needs and urges.
Celebration for Hari Raya Puasa starts at least a month ahead, during the fasting period of Ramadan. Women start to sew beautiful curtains and buy new clothes for the family. Some families also do renovation for the house so that the house would look better when the guests visit it during the festival. After fulfilling their one-month of fasting, the Muslims would be joyful to celebrate Hari Raya Puasa. On the morning of the festival, the Muslims would wear their new clothes and go to the mosque to pray. They offer their thanks to God and after that they would ask for forgiveness from their elders. This is an important custom followed by the Muslims.
Mostly, when we celebrate Hari Raya it also has open house. It means that the open house is something that compulsory to have had. For example, Prime Minister open house, others minister and so on. The tradition of holding open house and visiting one another during festival occasions like Hari Raya Aidilfitri had been one of the most important unifying factors in Malaysia and as such it has to be nurtured. The open house has many benefits and is a benchmark in determining the strength of family institution as well as unity and harmony among the multi- racial society in Malaysia.
In politic environment are less comfortable now, open house can be container pooling people of various races and religions. It can be used to strengthen the bonds of unity that has been so closely intertwined, until it now looks a little bit loose because of politics.
Living among harmonious and cooperative neighbors has many other advantages and one of it is improving knowledge and understanding on the various cultures and traditions. Besides that, neighbors could be of great help in times of trouble and thus such event can help foster the bond of neighborliness. Other that, when we have the open house it is togetherness was one of the efforts to promote 1 Malaysia concept. Means that, if we hold open house and receive guests regardless of race and religion and it will be a meaningful avenue to foster national unity.
It is a testament to the outside world of jealousy and envy the prosperity that we have that are still sane people in this country to wage war between the races.
The Hari Raya open house it aimed to portray the Malay culture of sharing and doing things together and also to enhance understanding and networking among various races of the Hari Raya and 1 Malaysia. The unique tradition of Hari Raya open house is also represented the traditional dishes such lemang, ketupat, rendang and so on. So with these traditional dishes we can share and served for other races to try the Malay dishes of Hari Raya and make joyful and meaningful for them.
As a conclusion, Hari Raya is a joyous occasion for Muslims, as it signifies a personal triumph, a victory of self-restraint and abstinence, symbolic purification and renewal. We celebrate together and open house is one best event for all people in Malaysia to keep closer with each other. I get this message during prime minister open house and he said “open house would be more meaningful if we also open our hearts to our guests”.
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