Two days the religion appointed

The command to say it is in the Book, at the close of the verses on fasting: complete the number of days, and magnify Allah for having guided you. The exact wording is not in the Book, and it is not in a raised narration from the Prophet ﷺ either. What we have is the wording the companions used, and more than one wording is reported from them, all of it sound.

The form below is the one from Ibn Mas’ud, and it is the one most communities say. If your masjid says it with three takbirs at the front instead of two, they have another report behind them and neither of you is wrong.

For Eid al-Fitr it is unrestricted: from sunset on the last night of Ramadan, once the month is confirmed over, until the imam comes out for the Eid prayer. Say it walking, say it in the car, say it while the children are being dressed. It stops when the prayer starts.

For Eid al-Adha there are two takbirs running at once. The unrestricted one runs through the whole first ten days of Dhul Hijjah, said whenever you like. The restricted one, the takbir of Tashriq, is said after every obligatory prayer from Fajr on the ninth to Asr on the thirteenth. That one has its own card further down this page.

The exact start and end of the restricted takbir is a real difference between the schools and not a small one. What every school agrees on is that the ninth and the days after the Eid are loud days. Follow your masjid and do not argue about the edges.

It begins once the sun has properly risen, about the height of a spear above the horizon, which in ordinary language is fifteen to twenty minutes after sunrise, and it ends at midday when the sun reaches its highest point. Most masjids pray it somewhere in the first hour and a half of that window.

The two Eids were prayed at slightly different hours by the early community: Eid al-Adha early, so people could get to the sacrifice, and Eid al-Fitr a little later, so people had time to hand over zakat al-fitr before the prayer. That is a good habit rather than a rule, and it explains why your masjid may run the two differently.

It is two rak’ahs, units of prayer, prayed aloud by the imam, with extra takbirs at the start of each one that the daily prayers do not have.

The majority, meaning Malik, al-Shafi’i and Ahmad, count seven takbirs in the first rak’ah and five in the second, all before the recitation, with the opening takbir counted inside the seven by some of them and outside it by others. Abu Hanifah counts three extra in the first rak’ah before the recitation and three in the second after it, before bowing.

Both positions rest on reports that are actually narrated. Nobody invented theirs. If you are following an imam, follow him and do not count under your breath. If you find yourself doing it differently from the row next to you, that is what a school is.

Jabir b. Samurah said he prayed the two Eids with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ more than once and more than twice, with no call to prayer and no second call.

This is worth noticing rather than skipping. The one prayer of the year that the whole town comes to is the one prayer nobody is summoned to. You come because it is Eid.

Ibn Abbas and Ibn Umar both reported that the Prophet ﷺ, then Abu Bakr, then Umar, prayed the two Eids before the sermon. This is the opposite of Jumu’ah, where the sermon comes first and is part of the prayer.

Because the sermon comes after, it is not a condition of the prayer, and the scholars of every school say a person who leaves before it has still prayed his Eid. Staying is better and more courteous to the imam. Leaving with a crying child is not a sin, and it was never treated as one.

This one comes up every year and deserves a straight answer with the disagreement left in.

Al-Shafi’i and Ahmad say yes: whoever misses the Eid prayer prays two rak’ahs, alone or with his household, and Anas b. Malik used to gather his family and his servants at his estate and have one of them lead them in two rak’ahs exactly as the town was praying. Malik says similar, as something recommended rather than required. Abu Hanifah says no: the Eid prayer has conditions of congregation that a household does not meet, so the one who missed it has missed it and owes nothing.

So a person praying two rak’ahs at home after missing the Eid prayer is following named scholars, and a person who prays nothing is also following named scholars. What nobody permits is treating either as the normal way. The Eid prayer is meant to be prayed with the town, outdoors where that is possible, because half of what it is for is that everybody sees everybody.

Umm Atiyya said: we were commanded to bring out the young girls and the women in seclusion, and the menstruating women, so that they might witness the good and the supplication of the Muslims, and the menstruating women kept back from the prayer itself.

A woman said, Messenger of Allah, one of us has no jilbab, meaning no outer garment fit to be seen in. He ﷺ said: let her sister clothe her with one of hers. The problem of a woman having nothing to wear was solved rather than used as a reason to leave her at home.

Read that carefully before deciding your household will go without the women. The instruction is not that they may come if they wish. The instruction is to bring them out, including the ones who cannot pray that day, because being present is the point.

Ghusl means a full wash of the whole body. Ibn Umar used to do it on the morning of Eid al-Fitr before going out, and the practice of the companions is what this rests on rather than a raised narration, so the schools call it recommended rather than required.

For clothes, the Prophet ﷺ kept a particular cloak that he wore for the two Eids and for Jumu’ah. It does not have to be new. It has to be your best, which is a different and easier instruction, and one that does not cost anyone money.

Perfume is for the men going out. The general guidance on women and scent in public applies here as everywhere else, and the room is not going to pretend otherwise.

Jabir said that on the day of Eid the Prophet ﷺ would take a different way back. It is one of those small reported habits that survives because people noticed it and could not stop talking about why.

The reasons the scholars give are guesses, and they say so: that both roads will testify for you, that more people get greeted, that the religion is seen openly on more streets, that charity can be given on two routes instead of one. None of that is narrated as the reason. The act is narrated. Do it because he did it, and let the reasons be a bonus.

Jubayr b. Nufayr reported that the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, when they met one another on the day of Eid, would say the words below. Ibn Hajar cited the chain and called it good. It is a practice of the companions rather than a text from the Prophet ﷺ, and that is exactly how it should be described.

Eid Mubarak, a blessed Eid, is not narrated from anybody. It is a good sentence in ordinary language that Muslims have said to each other for centuries and there is nothing wrong with it. Use whichever you like, and do not correct someone who used the other one.

Abu Sa’id al-Khudri reported that the Prophet ﷺ forbade fasting on the day of Fitr and the day of Adha. This is not disliked, it is forbidden, and it holds even for a person making up missed days and even for a person under a vow.

The three days of Tashriq after Eid al-Adha are also days of eating, drinking and the remembrance of Allah, and fasting them is forbidden too, with one narrow exception the scholars allow for a pilgrim who could not find a sacrifice.

There is a reason worth hearing in this. A religion that asks a whole month of hunger also forbids you from being hungry on the day it ends. The joy is not a break from the worship. It is part of it, and refusing it is not piety.

Aisha said two girls were with her on the day of Eid, singing the songs the Ansar used to sing about the battle of Bu’ath, and they were not singers. Abu Bakr came in and said: the pipes of the devil, in the house of the Messenger of Allah? And he ﷺ said: leave them, Abu Bakr, every people has a festival, and this is our festival.

In the same collection, the Abyssinians played with their spears in the masjid and he stood with Aisha behind him watching until she had had enough, holding his cloak up as a screen and asking her, are you done yet.

The most cautious man in the community got corrected on this, in his own daughter’s house, in front of her. That is the level of seriousness with which joy on Eid is being defended.

Handing children money or a gift on Eid is a custom, not a sunnah, and it is a good one. Nothing needs to be spent that a household does not have. What is remembered thirty years later is almost never the size of it.

What is remembered is the shape of the morning: that everyone got up early, that everyone was dressed well, that the whole family walked somewhere together, that somebody said the takbir out loud in the car and it was not embarrassing. Build that and the presents are decoration.

One thing worth guarding: give to all of them in the same measure. Fairness between children was the subject of a whole narration, and Eid is exactly the day it gets tested.

This is written for the households where the women cook from six in the morning until four in the afternoon, miss the prayer, miss the takbir, miss the visiting, and eat standing up. It happens every year in a great many homes and nobody planned it.

The instruction in the sources runs the other way. The women were commanded to be brought out to the prayer, including the ones excused from praying. Nobody was told to stay behind and cook. A festival that a whole half of the household experiences as a work shift has gone wrong somewhere between the text and the kitchen.

Practical, and it does work: cook what can be cooked the day before, buy what can be bought, eat something simple at lunch and properly in the evening, and put the men and the older children on the clearing up. The food is not the Eid. Everybody being in the same room is the Eid.