Afghanistan is a country, where any important events, particularly the two Eids festivals, cost higher than usual. The fasting Muslim people, at the threshold of the holy religious festival, have to spend more money (even to take loans, if they cannot afford) to buy different types of dry and fresh fruits and various types of cookies and candies to welcome their guests during the three days of the Eids. When the days of the Eids get closer, fruit and candy markets are overcrowded with hundreds of customers; everyone wants to outrun and buy his/her Eid essentials. Sometimes, they blamed the businessmen and shopkeepers for overpriced commodities and the government for failing to control the prices, when it is just two or three days to the Eid festivity. When you visit the house of one of your friends or relatives; either poor or rich, high-ranking government officials or ordinary workers, you will see nearly the same arranged tablecloths. This means that they are competing with each other to show their household styles and that which one of them could arrange their tablecloths better than others during the Eids days. People who spend money to buy high-priced items including edible and non-edible items, to welcome their visiting friends and relatives during the Eid days, have violated the instruction of the holy Islamic religion and committed faults before the divine order saying: “Eat and drink and do not waste by extravagance.” This is a mere competition among them rather to a worship; as they spent twenty-nine or thirty days to observe fast, recite the holy Quran, help broke families to have the Allah Almighty happy, but at the end, they commit such a sin that feared to negate all what they have during the holy fasting days. This is a tradition rather than a religious guideline to spend beyond one’s economic capability for only warmly welcoming their guests. As this year’s Eid-ul-Fitr is due to arrive, thousands of Afghan citizens rush to the markets to buy different kinds of materials including fruits, candies, cookies etc. a move completely against the Islamic teachings and harmful to the households’ fragile economy. Let’s follow the instructions of the holy religion and do not waste by extravagance which is rejected by the religion and is denounced from the perspective of the holy Islamic teachings. The guidance of the religion allows Muslims to wear new or clean clothing, while they are joining Eids prayers or marking the three days of the two Eid-ul-Fitr or Eid-ul-Adha and any move to waste money is a mere haram and against the orders of the religion. Under the Islamic system, the religious scholars of the country, particularly, the Ministry of Order to Virtue and Prevention from Vice and the countrywide Ulama Council should also deliver speeches about this vicious tradition and highlight the religious and economic harms of the destructive and anti-Islamic phenomenon and announce a permanent ban to it, so that the people to avoid its popularization in the country.
