MEDIA: WhiteHouse hosts first-ever Eid al-Adha celebration

The Rumi Forum was honored to play a role in supporting the first Whitehouse Eid Reception. We are very pleased it was attended by numerous interfaith leaders from the wider Washington DC area as well as numerous people form various agencies. 

See also:  White House mentions the Rumi Forum

Emre Çelik speaks at the White House during an interfaith gathering for the Eid al-Adha holiday.

October 15, 2014, Wednesday/ 18:29:59/ İHSAN DENLİ / DC

The White House hosted an event to celebrate Eid al-Adha on Tuesday for the first time ever with the sponsorship of the Rumi Forum, an international organization established by Turks living in Washington, D.C., to foster intercultural dialogue.

The White House traditionally hosts an iftar (fast-breaking) dinner every year for representatives of Muslim communities in the United States, but Tuesday's event was the first time that they have hosted a celebratory event for Eid al-Adha, upon the suggestion of Rumi Forum. The opening speech of the event was made by White House Public Relations Office Deputy Director Ashley Allison and Rumi Forum President Emre Çelik.

The forum, of which Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen is the honorary chairman, provided food for the event.

Speaking to Today's Zaman, Çelik said Rumi Forum came up with the idea to host a celebratory event for Eid al-Adha with the attendance of representatives from different religions. The event was attended by about 60 people from various interfaith organizations in Washington, including representatives from Christian and Jewish organizations in the US, as well as Muslims.

At the event, different faith groups' representatives delivered speeches emphasizing the importance of interfaith dialogue. The evening ended with a closing speech by Special Assistant to the US President and Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships Melissa Roger.

According to its website, Rumi Forum was founded in 1999 “with the mission to foster intercultural dialogue, stimulate thinking and exchange of opinions on supporting and fostering democracy and peace and to provide a common platform for education and information exchange.”

The principal goal of the Rumi Forum is explained on its website as promoting peace in the world and contributing to the peaceful coexistence of adherents of different faiths, cultures, ethnicities and races.

Religious Festivals by Fethullah Gulen

On the occasion of Eid Al Adha, it's appropriate to revisit Fethullah Gulen's article on religious festivals, particularly from a Muslim scholar's perspective

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NEW YORK TIMES - Full interview with Fethullah Gulen by Brian Knowlton




Issue 7 / July - September 1994

Religious Festivals

M. Fethullah Gulen

Almost every nation has religious festivals to commemorate important events in their history or to celebrate special occasions.

There are two religious festivals in Islam. ‘Id al-Fitr, the festival of the breaking of the fast, comes at the end of the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. ‘Id al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, comes on the tenth of Dhu’I-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic year in which the pilgrimage is performed. Both festivals enjoy a very special place in the life of Muslims and leave indelible impressions on the culture of Muslim people.

Religious festivals for Muslims are times of heightened Islamic thoughts and feelings when memories of a long and honourable past are revived, recalled and ‘lived’ afresh with all its joys and sorrows.

Religious festivals are, for Muslims, occasions of paradoxical feelings - pangs of separation and hopes of re-union, regrets and expectations, and joys and sorrows. While on the one hand, they feel sadness over losses in either individual or national spheres, on the other, they feel, paradoxically, the exhilarating pleasure of an expected revival, like the revival of nature in spring after a severe winter.

Muslims enjoy the pleasure of re-union and of a universal brotherhood on festival days. They smile at each other lovingly, greet each other respectfully, and pay visits to each other. Members of divided families whom modern, industrialized life has forced to live apart from each other in different towns, come together and feel the intoxicating pleasure of once more eating together and spending a few days together.

For Muslims, religious festivals are occasions for spiritual revival through seeking God’s forgiveness and praising and glorifying Him. They are enraptured by special supplications, odes and eulogies for the Prophet. Especially in traditional circles where the traces of the past are still alive, people experience the meaning of the festival in a more vivid, colourful fashion, on cushions or sofas, or around stoves or fire-places in their humble houses or cottages, or under the trees among the flowers in their gardens, or in the spacious halls of their homes. They feel the meaning of the festival in each morsel they eat, in each sip they drink and in each word they speak about their traditional and religious values.

Religious festivals are of a much greater significance for children. They feel a different joy and pleasure in the warm, embracing climate of the festivals, which they have been preparing to welcome a few days before. Like nightingales singing on branches of trees, they cause us to experience the festivals more deeply through their plays, songs, smiles and cheers.

Religious festivals provide the most practical means for improving human relationships. People experience a deep inward pleasure, they meet and exchange good wishes in a blessed atmosphere of spiritual harmony. It is especially when the festival permeates hearts with prayer and supplications performed consciously that souls are elevated to the realm of eternity. They then feel the urge to get rid of the clutches of worldly attachments and live in the depths of their spiritual being. In the atmosphere overflowing with love and mercy, a new hope is injected with life.

Believing souls welcome the religious festivals with wonder, expectations and otherworldly pleasures. It is, indeed, difficult to understand fully what believing souls feel during the religious festivals in the depths of their hearts. To perceive the feelings that the festivals arouse in pure souls who lead their life in ecstasies of otherworldly pleasures, it is necessary to experience such pleasures in the same degree.

Having reached the day of the festival after fulfilling their prescribed duty and responsibility, these souls display such a dignity and serenity, such a grace and spiritual excellence that those who see them think that they have all received a perfect religious and spiritual education. Some of them are so sincere and so devoted to God that each seems to represent the outcome of a long glorious history and to be the embodiment of centuries-old universal values. One may experience through their conduct and manners that taste of the fruits of Paradise, the peaceful atmosphere on the slopes of firdaws-the highest abode in Paradise-and the delight of being near to God.

SOURCE:  http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/Religious-Festivals