An important part of Waldorf is celebrating festivals. The wheel of the year is followed closely and it is an integral element of curriculum and daily life. Seasonal changes are observed and impact the mood of the home (or classroom) and various festivals punctuate the year. If you look at a Waldorf curriculum or school however, you will immediately see that basically all of the festivals are Christian/Euro centric. As a Muslim family, I would look at a Waldorf curriculum and simply not be able to adapt much of the festival content to our home. And in the Islamic year there are many important holy days.
What’s more is that being on social media and following many Waldorf pages I have noticed that the cultural festivals of other religions/ethnicities are not even acknowledged on their pages. I’m not just talking about Islamic celebrations of course. I am speaking of every other “minority” group celebration (although the holy days of 2 billion Muslims can hardly be considered the minority can it??).
I went on a little google search to look for a guide to Eid al-adha specifically for non-Muslim children to understand, and was surprised to find that there was not much out there. So I’ve put together an Infographic on the celebration with some suggested activities and resources.
Enjoy! And if you have any questions about it, please feel free to comment below.
Generally, celebrations start from the first day of Dhul Hijjah. For those of age, fasting throughout these days is considered blessed, as is performing extra prayers. Charity must be paid as must the “qurban” or the sacrifice of a sheep whose meat is intended to be given to poorer people in the community.
In our home, we engaged in learning about the month, the pilgrimage, the story of Ibrahim(as) and Ismail (as). We rolled beeswax candles, and made watercolour lanterns with the silhouette of Ibrahim(as) and Ismail (as), and a sheep of course. We made gifts for family (even if we couldn’t get it to them because we are in lockdown). We also followed the Fons Vitae audiobook and activities, as linked in my previous post. We made a wall of all our activities. On the day of Eid we did a prayer at home, ate a lovely breakfast and exchanged presents. It was not the same without being able to visit family and friends, but we did the best we could with what we had.
