Muslims in Mombasa say prayers for Eid. (Photo Courtesy Gideon Maundu/Nation)

Sequel to the sighting of the moon of the month of Shawwal, Muslims in Nigeria joined the faithful all over the world to celebrate Eid-el-Fitr yesterday, to mark the end of the month-long Ramadan during which Muslims abstained from many pleasures, including eating and drinking, between dawn and sunset daily.

It is a month in which Muslims are required to refrain from immoral conduct and other acts that run contrary to the teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Muslims during the period are enjoined to seek closer ties with Allah through various acts of worship including the giving of alms to the needy, constant recitations of the Holy Qur'an, waking up to observe prayers at night, and more so, seek forgiveness for their sins.

Ramadan is therefore a period for sincere worship and devotion to religious obligations necessary for the individual to live a righteous life. Having undertaken these duties, it is hoped that Muslims would have imbibed the spiritual lessons of Ramadan and resolved to always live according to the consecrated tenets of the religion. This exhortation is important to remind ourselves that as individuals, it is our duty to exhibit the required capacity to do good by elevating decent values in our lives. That way, the practical benefit of self-denial carried out during Ramadan would have been achieved.

Furthermore, the end of Ramadan should not be seen especially by Muslims as an end to all the virtues including charity, good neighborliness and tolerance which in the last one month characterized their private and public lives. The salient lesson of fellow-feeling that Ramadan teaches should equally not be lost on us. The injunction to share even the little that is available to us is an entreaty to eschew selfishness, greed and covetousness, all of which have continued to harm in no small measure the development of the Nigerian society. These are consequently manifest in amoral leadership that has, over two decades, bedeviled our nation. It is evident that the only fixation of poor leadership is to pillage the nation's resources to the detriment of the toiling masses. The result, of course, has been the abject poverty prevalent in the country and the insecurity of lives and property, a sad and regrettable circumstance indeed.

Similarly, we advise that people should not go back to their old eating habits of unnecessary exuberance while dining, which undeniably is against prophetic eating traditions. Through the holy injunctions of Ramadan, which expectedly should impact positively on the spiritual state of our minds, Muslims at the end of Ramadan should be able to undertake right and proper actions. For the kind of equitable society Nigerians are yearning for to come about, those entrusted with the levers of power will have to exercise them for the common good of the people over whom they govern, which in specific terms means the provision of basic amenities and infrastructure required for societal progress. We use the occasion of the Eid-el-Fitr to call on Muslims in this part of the world to continue to uphold the virtue of peaceful co-existence as instructed by Prophet Muhammad who, as a practical leader by example, lived peacefully in Madina with Christians, Jews and Pagans. This is based on Qur'an 2:256 in which Allah revealed to the Prophet that, "Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear for Error..." In the light of this verse of the Qur'an therefore, improper and untoward actions that could result in communal and religious conflicts should be avoided.

Eid-el-Fitr being an occasion during which families incur some necessary expenditure in addition to increased movement of people, we discourage the traditional exploitation of the Nigerian people by commodity traders who take undue advantage of the religious festival to hike prices of goods and services, which indeed is against the spirit of the celebration. Daily Trust calls on Muslims to celebrate the Eid-el-Fitr with moderation and restraint as a practical expression of the lessons and message of Ramadan. Petroleum products' dealers and transporters who cause artificial scarcity of fuel or vehicles which, in turn, cause commuters to be stranded are indeed enemies of progress in Nigeria. This unbecoming act should therefore be discarded. We wish all Nigerians Barka da Sallah and a peaceful celebration.