As a small group of men chanted an Eid prayer, throngs of Muslims walked onto the football field at Madison Park Vocational Technical High School last Wednesday in the colors and clothes of their Middle Eastern, African and European nationalities.
Facing the sun, rows of men, and behind, rows of women set down prayer rugs and took their seats. By the time the prayer marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan began, several thousand filed onto the artificial turf and surrounding rubber-surfaced track.
“This is a major celebration for Muslims all around the world,” said Liban Ali, who watched with his son, Muhammad as the athletic field filled with worshipers. “People visit one another, exchange gifts, share meals.”
Ali, a Transportation Security Administration supervisor, said he would host a breakfast at his home after the 7:30 a.m. Eid observance, then attend a breakfast at the home of a Roxbury neighbor before visiting friends in Brockton.
Islamic Society of Boston Executive director Yusufi Vali addresses the Eid gathering as Imam Shaykh Yasir Fahmy looks on.
The celebration comes at the end of a month during which most Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. Because the lunar calendar-based month of Ramadan this year included the summer solstice and, therefore, the longest day of the year, Muslims endured 15-hour intervals between meals. For the dedicated observers, there were nightly prayers as well.
“We did taraweeh,” said Ron Aamiruddin Mahdi, a professor at the Berklee College of Music who worships at the Masjid Al-Quaran mosque in Grove Hall. “Every night for the last ten nights, we stayed up praying. Some people slept in the masjid.”
After nights of prayer and days of fasting, Mahdi said, Eid brings a feeling of jubilation.
“You’ve put in a whole lot of work,” he said. “When you come to something like this, you see Muslims from every part of the world, all here for the same purpose. This is what real Islam is about.”
Yusufi Vali, Executive Director of the Islamic Center of Boston, which co-hosted the event with the Grove Hall mosque and a Cambridge mosque, echoed Mahdi’s sentiments.
“The rhetoric around the country is divisive,” he said. “What’s powerful today is that we have thousands of people coming together. Boston has embraced its Islamic people. The mayor is here to speak. It’s remarkable, given the tenor of the time.”
Even before the building was completed in 2009, Muslims of all nationalities gathered at Madison Park for Eid, filling the school’s gymnasium. While daily prayers and smaller religious observances take place in the mosque, the 70,000-square-foot structure is not large enough for crowds like the one that showed up Wednesday morning.
In his remarks, Walsh thanked the Muslim community for their contributions to Boston.
“We are a city of multiple nationalities,” he said. “We are a city of multiple faiths. We all stand together as a city.”
