Posted on: Saturday, January 22, 2005
Muslims scale back celebration
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
Yesterday's Eid al-Adha festival at Manoa District Park, one of the Muslim community's most important days, hit a more somber note this year for Jamal Esuf.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser "In my village, 293 bodies were found, and they don't know how many more are buried in the sand," said the engineer. He moved to Hawai'i five years ago, then worked to bring his family over. They came just a year ago.
His village isn't the only one on the minds of O'ahu Muslims who gathered yesterday for their annual festival. Participants chose to have a scaled-back Eid al-Adha, with the money normally used for the celebration and other donations sent to tsunami victims. They hope to raise about $100,000.
Hakim Ouansafi, head of the Muslim Association of Hawai'i, said members hope to undertake a few ongoing projects, too, such as the building of an orphanage. Some families here are working to adopt homeless children.
Muslim Association of Hawai'i: 947-6263, iio.org. When it comes to Hawai'i's Muslim community, those relatives can be near as well as far. At the festival, Muslims in attendance spoke more than a dozen dialects of Arabic. Besides the predominant English, some spoke French, Spanish, Urdu, German and Hindi. People who make up the varied group hail from more than 30 countries, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Turkey, India, Morocco, Qatar, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
This year, organizers canceled the games and family-friendly activities that have embellished past festivals. But Lionel Price, who stopped to chat after herding his three children back from the park, didn't mind.
"The idea is not to be celebratory when so many are suffering," he said, adjusting the white braided cap on his head, while keeping a close eye on his young charges.
"I guess it's not a bad idea. Kids will have fun no matter what."
Gone was the bouncy inflatable, brought out for children in past years. In lieu of big tents filled with delicacies, a table was set for coffee, doughnuts and juice. The area that usually overflows with shoes was smaller, too.
But Esuf of Sri Lanka wasn't bothered. As he thought about it, he shook his head.
In Nintavur, those hardest hit were the poor, he said, who couldn't afford the high rent on higher ground.
About 8,000 Nintavur villagers are displaced — half living with relatives and half in refugee camps. Esuf said he pledged money to the village and is hoping to create an organized charity for it.
"So many were poor people. The first thing I thought is, what will they do? They're already poor. Now they have nothing.
"It's too sad."
Reach Mary Kaye Ritz at mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8035.
He is concerned about the devastation in his former village, Nintavur, in the Ampari district of Sri Lanka — struck by the deadly tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in South Asia.
Members of Honolulu's Muslim community pray during the Eid al-Adha festival at Manoa District Park. The festival, which commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God, was scaled back after last month's deadly Indian Ocean tsunami.
It's part of the spirit of sacrifice: Each year on the holiday of Eid al-Adha, Muslims traditionally sacrifice an animal in remembrance of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael at God's command. The meat is distributed to relatives and to the needy.
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