Millions of Muslims paid respects at ancestral graves, shared festive family meals and visited beaches and amusement parks Thursday to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, but violence and political tension overshadowed holiday joy in hot spots like Egypt, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday, which caps Ramadan, also highlighted the long-running divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Many Sunnis began celebrating Thursday, while Shiites were to mark the holiday today, based on different views about sighting the moon.
In recent months, sectarian tensions have risen between Sunnis and Shiites, with the two sides increasingly lined up on opposite sides of Syria’s civil war.
Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr are a time of increased religious devotion, and some Muslims said they’re particularly distraught over discord among the faithful during the holiday season.
For many of the world’s hundreds of millions of Muslims, Eid al-Fitr begins with a cemetery visit to pay respects to ancestors. In parts of the Middle East, people typically place palm fronds on graves.
In other holiday customs, children get haircuts, new clothes and toys, while well-off families slaughter animals and distribute the meat to the poor. Relatives visit each other, gather for festive meals, such as lamb and rice sprinkled with pine nuts, or spend the day in parks or on beaches.
In eastern Afghanistan, a bomb planted in a cemetery killed seven women and seven children from an extended family as they visited a relative’s grave as part of Eid observances.
There was no claim of responsibility, but a man whose daughter was killed in the blast blamed Taliban insurgents. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and urged the Taliban to lay down their arms.
In northern Iraq, police closed many streets in the mainly Sunni city of Mosul to prevent car bombs during the holiday. Bombings are part of Iraq’s ongoing sectarian strife, and violence has picked up in recent months.
Mosul resident Mohammed al-Samak said he planned to take his wife and five children to an amusement park later in the day despite the potential risk.
“We are aware that the security situation in Mosul is bad, but we cannot stay home all the time,” he said. “The family and I decided to have a nice Eid, away from fear and sadness.”
In Syria, devastated by civil war, rebels fired rockets and mortar shells Thursday at an upscale neighborhood in the capital, Damascus, where President Bashar Assad attended Eid prayers.
And in tent camps that have sprung up in neighboring countries, Syrian refugees marked the holiday with a mix of hope and despair.
“We wish in this Eid that God liberates Syria and to return safely to our country,” said Ibrahim Ismail, a refugee from Damascus, after he performed holiday prayers with others in Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari camp.
In the Palestinian territories, rival leaders Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and Ismail Haniyeh in the Gaza Strip used holiday speeches to stake out their opposing views on the negotiations with Israel that resumed last week.
Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, said he hoped that by next year’s holiday, “our people will achieve their hope of freedom and independence.” Abbas is embarking on a new attempt, after a five-year freeze, to negotiate the terms of a Palestinian state with Israel.
But Haniyeh, the top leader of the Islamic militant Hamas organization in Gaza, urged Abbas to walk away from the negotiations, noting that 20 years of intermittent talks have delivered no results. “From here, we reaffirm our rejection of negotiations,” he told worshippers.
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