‘Joy in the midst of much grief’: Australian Eid and Nowruz celebrations overshadowed by war in the Middle East

Inaz Janif would ordinarily attend prayers at the mosque for Eid al-Fitr, the event that marks the end of Ramadan, a sacred month and fasting period for Muslims.

This year, however, she’s doing something a bit different.

“I’m going to take a family-centred approach. I’m a mum of four and my plans for Eid this year are to take my children to a community-centered celebration and prayers,” Janif says.

The event, held by Muslim organisation Benevolence Australia, will include face painting, henna and activities for the children.

“I think it might be a bit healing for my children,” she says.

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For many Australian Muslims, approaching Friday’s Eid with a sense of celebration is difficult this year as war continues in the Middle East. The Iranian diaspora will also be preparing for the Persian new year – Nowruz – this weekend, against the backdrop of war.

Yet many say that being an openly practising Muslim in Australia is feeling increasingly risky.

Janif says she’s approaching Eid differently this year. Photograph: Penny Stephens/The Guardian

“There’s a deep sense of grief … we’re trying to practise our faith and find joy in the midst of much grief, much pain,” Janif says. “It feels really surreal and wrong to celebrate something, when so many people that I love and care about are worried about the survival of people they love overseas.”

Security was also stepped up at Heidelberg mosque in Melbourne, Imam Alaa Elzokm says, where they expected 1,500 worshippers to attend prayers on Friday morning.

He hoped to give “a message of comfort” during the event.

“We have families who either have family members who are stuck overseas because of the war and some also have relatives in other countries like Lebanon, for example, that got recently struck as well,” Elzokm says.

“We feel saddened by the war in general. We don’t like any person to be unsafe. We don’t like children to be killed. And that’s the current situation in the Middle East now.”

Increased security at Lakemba mosque

Concerns about a rise in Islamophobic incidents in Australia are making the community fearful, Elzokm says.

But this year’s Eid – calculated according to the lunar calendar and marked by the sighting of the new moon – also comes in the shadow of the seventh anniversary of the Christchurch massacre.

“Everybody’s remembering Christchurch,” Elzokm says. “The fear is still there.”

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Gamel Kheir, the secretary of the Lebanese Muslim Association, says he believes this fear is also being driven by the actions of politicians.

“You’ve got politicians jumping over themselves to see who can be more extreme in their hatred of the Muslim faith. That’s the worrying attitude – these politicians who are just clickbaiting for some cheap votes have standardised and normalised Islamophobia,” Kheir says.

Kheir says Sydney’s Lakemba mosque has had to increase security for the 50,000 people expected to attend Eid prayers – to a level not required since the 2005 Cronulla riots.

“The elderly are too scared to walk to the mosque. Because our prayers are at night, they’re walking in the dark, we can’t offer a pickup service. We’ve got women who won’t send their children to the mosque any more because it’s at night,” Kheir says.

“The community remains resilient and we’ll celebrate as we usually will, but with a touch of remorse and sorrow.”

Nowruz becomes ‘form of resistance’ among many Iranians

Nowruz is an ancient cultural ritual that predates modern religion and marks the northern hemisphere’s spring equinox.

Nowruz is also one of the few ancient Persian cultural practices to survive under the repressive Iranian Islamist regime.

Mediya Rangi, who left Iran more than 20 years ago when she was a teenager, has been volunteering with the Australian Iranian Sun and Lion Association, which is holding an event at Melbourne’s Federation Square to mark Nowruz on Saturday afternoon.

Rangi says Nowruz has become “a form of resistance for us … it is an honouring of what is going on to our people today”.

She says many people have received messages from their family members hoping they will celebrate Nowruz, especially after the massacre of protesters in Iran in January, and as news spread that Iranians in Tehran celebrating another ancient ritual, Chaharshanbe Suri, or festival of fire, were shot at by security forces this week, amid the bombing of the country by Israel and the US.

“Nowruz predates the Islamic Republic and this is a light they’re trying to take out and we won’t let them. So for us, it’s very much tied to that resistance, to that defiance,” Rangi says.

“We feel if we come together we can not only uphold this 3,000-year-old ritual that signifies hope and renewal for us, but we can also provide some comfort for each other and hold each other in this space and continue to hope for the future.”