Last updated on January 1, 2019
By most counts almost 90% of Indonesians are Muslims. This adds up to over 200 million people making Indonesia the largest Muslim country in the world. Probably the most important religious event for this huge community is the annual Bulan Puasa (Fasting Month) in the Muslim month of Ramadhan. During Ramadhan Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink (and other indulgences like cigarettes and sex) during daylight hours. It is – or should be – a time of special piety. People strive in a more focussed way to implement the teachings of Islam. They recite and study the Qur’an. They assemble for special prayers. They try to create an atmosphere of Islamic order and community. In many places schools close and offices reduce their workload so that staff can more fully meet the demands of the Fast.
During Ramadhan people have to get up very early to have breakfast before dawn. This early breakfast is called sahur. After a long, often very trying, day in the tropical heat without eating or drinking, at nightfall people break their fast. This is called buka puasa, and often simply buka or berbuka. In households, neighbourhoods, work places and mosques across Indonesia, Muslims assemble to pray, hear verses from the Qur’an and perhaps listen to good advice on how to understand Islam better and live a more fully Islamic life. As the sky darkens people sip a drink to break their fast, then eat in groups with family, neighbours, friends and work colleagues. Families and communities – even very poor people – strive to prepare special foods for the buka puasa meal. It is a memorable time, a time when people try to put the highest ideals of Islam at the forefront of daily living.
The end of the Fast is celebrated in a festival called, in Indonesia, Idul Fitri (a variant of the Arabic Aidul Fitr). Many Javanese people call the celebration Lebaran which means something like “the time after the Fast is over”. Many millions of those who live in big cities head back to their home villages (known as mudik or pulang kampung) to celebrate with their families. For two weeks it seems the whole country is on the move. Roads are clogged, inter-city traffic slows to a crawl, trains and buses are jam-packed,air bookings are impossible to get. City people on their way to their ancestral homes in the countryside are weighed down with food, new clothes and oleh-oleh gifts for family and neighbours.
In the nation’s villages, as people await family from the city, houses are spruced up and yards swept clean. Beds and sleeping platforms are rearranged to accommodate the influx, and mysterious presents lie wrapped and stacked in cupboards. Tables groan under the burden of bottled drinks and packets of biscuits. Special cakes and savouries are cooked. Almost synonymous with Idul Fitri are the rice dumplings called ketupat. Rice is wrapped in small cube-like packets woven from coconut leaves or palm-tree fronds. These are boiled, and individual grains disappear as the cooked rice expands to tightly fill its leaf casing. The dense lumps of rice are eaten with rendang (beef chunks cooked until dry in a spicy sauce with coconut) or gulai ayam (spicy chicken stew).
At sunset on the last day of the Fast exuberant celebrations break out. Mosques are packed. Through the night there are prayers of thanksgiving. Many people gather to chant devotional phrases over and over in Arabic, like Allahu akbar (God is great) and La illaha ilallah (There is no god but Allah). People walk the streets in groups, or crisscross their neighbourhoods on the backs of trucks, chanting these phrases in chorus, very often to the accompaniment of noisy displays of fireworks.
In the quiet of the following morning many people attend mass morning prayers. They put on their very best clothes, usually brand new. Men greet one another with a handshake and the Arabic phrase As-salam alaikum (Peace be upon you) to which the answer is Wa alaikum as-salam (And peace be upon you too). This is followed by Selamat Hari Raya (Happy Feast Day). Women greet one another with a traditional cium (cheek pressed against cheek, right and left, accompanied by a sniff). Back home children greet their parents and grandparents with special displays of gratitude and respect. Children (including the adult children of elderly parents) kneel before their seated parents, place their head on their parents’ lap or kiss their parents’ hands and ask for their blessings. The mother and father will place their hands on their children, kiss them and murmur words of love and encouragement. It is a moment of great tenderness. Occasionally it is very emotional.
Some people go to family graves, tidy them up and pray for the repose of the dead. People also try to “make a new start” with family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues by saying Saya minta maaf lahir dan batin, very often shortened to Maaf lahir batin. This means literally “I ask for forgiveness outwardly and inwardly”, although this is the most minimal of translations. More fully the sentence might be rendered “If I have given you any offence, please forgive me, not just as a matter of polite etiquette, but from the heart… and I too plead for your forgiveness not just as an
outward gesture, but from the bottom of my heart.”
Then everyone sets off to visit relatives, neighbours and friends. The ritual of making and receiving visits, serving drinks and special foods, catching up on personal news, and of course, asking for forgiveness lahir dan batin is repeated a thousand times in the two days of the Idul Fitri holiday. It is a very special time for children. Decked out in their new clothes, and often with new toys, children gambol around their parents and stuff themselves with the special goodies of Hari Raya. As always in Indonesia (or almost always), children are treated with remarkable public affection and tolerance.