Eid Mubarak Texting

AA

Belated 'Id (Eid) Mubarak to all...

As always, mashaAllah, Eid was a beautiful day. I enjoyed it with family and friends. We had a number of family friends and family come and go in the house. Visited my main homie AJ (see pic above) and his brother Aamer. And, of course, I had my phone go crazy with "Eid Mubarak" texts every 10 minutes as I'm sure you did as well.

This relatively new phenomena - Eid texting - has done wonders for the Muslim world. With one sweeping text blast, you can wish everyone you know a joyous Eid. Technology has never been better, I tell ya.

With Eid texting, the individual brother or sister no longer has to waste deplorable time talking to people to wish them happiness, baraqa, peace, blah, blah, blah. We can now streamline our previously normal and, let's face it, burdensome task of talking to Brother Fulan (Arabic for so-and-so) or Sister Fulan by simply taking one minute of our obviously invaluable time and oh-so-important lives to say Eid Mubarak. We can cover the different levels of friends we have (i.e. acquaintances, people we are fake with in person and really don't care about, people that we are content to only talk to once a year), extended family, and of course in-laws with a single "Eid Mubarak!!" text.

In fact, Eid texting has replaced the equally cumbersome and cheesey process of sending eid cards via EidMubarak.com, which was revolutionary at its time because it replaced paying money for postage - astaghferAllah - to send paper-based Eid cards. MashaAllah, our inboxes are not filled (not as much, at least) with that annoying Naseeb caricture and President Bush e-card where Bush greets us by saying "As salami..." I still have nightmares about that one (While innocently grocery shopping, Bush jumps out from behind the dairy products section throwing salami slices at my head while trying to get me to endorse muslimsforbush.com. The scary thing was that he had the Naseeb guy's fobbish voice.)

There are only two forseeable issues with Eid texting: 1) Accidentally including a non-Muslim on the text or 2) Getting a response from someone.

Regarding point 1: Not a huge ordeal as I really hope that most of your non-Muslim friends will realize that you are, mashaAllah, a Muslim. So you can easily explain their text message reply of "WTF are you saying?" by saying, "Oh, don't worry. It's a Muslim holiday today."

Hmm, on second thought, that could freak the hell out of them. I don't think non-Muslims know we have holidays and have "fun" and things of that obscene nature. So instead be "honest" and say, "Dude! Someone totally stole my cell phone for like two minutes, but then returned it back to me, so ignore any Arabic-sounding text messages" to which your friend Billy Bob will surely reply, "LOL. Crazy times, huh, buddy? Don't worry about it, Moe. Say hi to Mary for me."

Regarding point 2: Okay, this is when it gets complicated. Say you, Brother Muhammad (or "Moe" as you like to call yourself, you fricken sellout), included Brother X (no, he's not black, you presumptious desi) on a text and he replies back to you. What do you do? You had no intention of having any further interaction with him, and now, in a blatant act of brotherhood (and on Eid, no less), he has the heart to either return your text msg and say, "Eid Mubarak to you, too! How are you, man?" or worse yet actually call you back! I know, I know, folks! It's a little tough to swallow, but it is possible. My simple solution to this is that you don't reply back at all. While you're returning his message or answering his phone call, someone at your house is taking another bowl of kheer without any humanly regard for you! This is Eid! Eat, drink, and focus on collecting your Eidy, my dear brother! Brother X was only trying to be nice to you because he likes your sister, man...

Anyway, getting back to the bright side of this matter: Eid texting allows you to connect to all the people you really care about without actually having to have a live conversation with them.

Great times are head of us, Muslim Ummah. First we let the world know we are beautiful and now we use technology to stay and not stay in contact at the same time. Figure that paradox out...

Fi Aman Allah