Islamic New Year; what new year?

In the lead up to the Chinese New Year which will fall on Feb. 9, shopping malls in the city have turned red with decorations and other paraphernalia to encourage shoppers to spend for the festivities.

How a new year is related to the obligation to spend hard- earned money is still a perennial subject of debate, but there is the belief that the coming of a new year is worth celebrating as people have survived yet another year, some have prospered, while many others have met misfortune.

Amid the festive mood leading up to the celebration of Chinese New Year, few realize that the day after the arrival of the Year of the Rooster, Muslims will see another page turn in their almanac.

On Feb. 10, Muslims will observe the Islamic New Year. However, like last year and the year before, Muslims don't seem to have a proper celebration for the event.

Shopping malls are not decorated with calligraphy, neither do they offer goods at discounted prices to lure Muslim buyers. Absent also are the ketupat (steamed rice cooked in coconut palm leaves) or opor ayam (chicken curry) from the dining table, as they are served during Idul Fitri celebrations.

Mainstream Islamic teaching does not recognize the observance of a new year and the tradition was introduced by a caliph who ruled the Muslim world decades after the passing of Prophet Muhammad.

At that time Muslim Arabs already had their own almanac, complete with the calculation of days and months, but not the year. After grueling deliberation involving an idea that the new year should start from the time when an Abbesynian king launched a strike against Mecca, it was finally agreed that it should start from the time when the Prophet left Mecca for Medina to begin a whole new chapter of Islamic proselytization.

Against such a historic background, there is indeed no urgency for celebration. Latter day clerics preached about the purification of the soul from year-long sins Muslims have committed.

The bulk of Javanese who live in rural regions and subscribe to Islam interpret the purification literally as a physical cleansing, by bathing in water from fountains or springs or at a spot where two rivers meet (gasp).

Such a ritual, a remnant of the Javanese pre-Islamic past, is visible on the eve of the Islamic New Year. People gathering in a river to bathe in chilly midnight air is a common sight in rural Java.

In the celebration, past traditions go hand in hand with Islamic traditions in the way Javanese retained their solar calender for counting the years, but embraced the Islamic lunar calendar for calculating months and days.

But for an urban-dwelling young Muslim who happens to be Javanese like me, who has long been estranged from both religion's high moral standards and ancestral traditions, the Islamic New Year is just one more day off.

So why the public holiday? -- M. Taufiqurrahman