Saturday, July 18, 2015

The REAL Meaning of Minal Aidin wal Faizin

Indonesia, with 13.1% of world Muslims resided in, has 87.2% of its total population holding Islam as their religion. This is the country I live in. So even though I am not a Muslim, I celebrate Eid al-Fitr (one of Islam major holidays) quite a lot. *cough* celebrate here refers to the number of shops I visit cos they're having sale, and a number of times I said or texted 'Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri' to my Muslim friends *cough*
Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri
Minal Aidin wal Faizin
Mohon maaf lahir dan batin
These are the standard lines people tell each other when it's Eid al-Fitr.
The first line is basically like saying Happy Birthday or Happy New Year or Happy Chinese New Year. In this case it is Happy Eid al-Fitr.
The third line is apologising physical and emotional wrongdoings.
The second line (this is my main point, so I mention this line lastly) is the only line which is not in indonesian. I thought that line essentially means 'mohon maaf lahir dan batin' (forgive my physical and emotional wrongdoings') because these two lines are often used in conjuction (minal aidin wal faizin, mohon maaf lahir dan batin). However, it is not of the same meaning. In fact, the meaning of that second line is very different from the third line.

Minal Aidin wal Faizin is a sentence which might come from arabic since each word has their own meaning in arabic language.

  • min = part of
  • al-aidin = people who return/come back
  • wa = and
  • al-faizin = win

It literally means....part of people who return and win.
Return here refers to return from the ramadan's struggle (ramadan's struggle = fasting period)
Thus, in a full sentence (in an attempt to translate minal aidin wal faizin to english) : "May you be part of the people who return with victory from the struggle of ramadan."
However, other sources interpret this phrase differently though not that far off from the above interpretation. They refer return as return to God (not 'rest in peace', but 'back to God's way') or return to purity. Thus, interpreting it as "May you be part of the people who return to purity and return with victory from the struggle of ramadan." Another loose translation I found is "May you be part of the people who return to purity and part of the people who are granted glory."

There are many interpretations, however the point is obvious. None of them come near to apologising. So I can take a conclusion that even though minal aidin wal faizin and mohon maaf lahir dan batin are two phrases commonly used in conjunction, they are definitely not come close to each other. I mean, they don't even complement each other like phone and charger or car and petrol.

Jesie S.
Medan, Fri, 18 July 2015.

p.s. While I browse minal aidin wal faizin, I found so many spelling on the words in that line. Some said aizin, others said aidzin; some said faidzin, others said faidin. There are even articles which used them interchangeably. I use aidin and faizin because there is one article which describe which and why it is the correct way to spell them. 

p.p.s. While browsing through many articles for my references, I also came across very similar articles. I don't know whether the author is the same person or not. One is from blogspot, the other is from wordpress. Maybe they use the same source. So the article came out very similar. Or they just wanna share an article, so they just copy-paste that particular article. Well, the titles are similar... so maybe just sharing from the same source.


References:

Friday, July 17, 2015

Quote on Eid al-Fitr

I saw these lines yesterday when I was browsing about Eid al-Fitr. Too bad, I cannot find the author or writer or where these lines are originated from.
Let's write all the mistakes down in the sand
And let the wind of forgiveness erase it away
Happy Idul Fitri, Minal 'Aidin wal-Faizin 
I would like to share this with you. You know, in a Eid al-Fitr (Idul Fitri - Indonesian way to refer to Eid al-Fitr) celebratory spirit.
Let's just ignore the grammatical errors because I do that a lot too. I will just write some lines in regards to the content of those lines.
Dear author of those lines,
When you write down mistakes on the sand,
it is the water job to erase them away
(or sea water if what you mean by sand is the one at the beach).
Sincerely, the wind.
Wait for it.... YES! There's a reply!
Dear the stupid wind above,
It's not writing on the sand, it's called writing IN the sand.
Furthermore, the sand there does not necessarily mean wet sand.
It's obvious wind can blow away dry sand.
Sincerely, the kinda bitchy and most certainly clever wind.
Is it a good laugh for you? It certainly is, for me. LOL.

Well, me with my not-so-professional grammar, have no idea which one is the correct one. Is it 'writing in the sand' or 'writing on the sand'? I try to google it and I think 'writing in the sand' is the correct one....(still not so sure) because there is a book (Writing in the Sand: Jesus & the Soul of the Gospels by Thomas Moore) and a song (Writing in the Sand by Theocracy) with that title.

Hmm. I'll use 'writing in the sand' instead of 'writing on the sand'. I mean, it is not possible to write on the sand, right? When you try to write with sand as your 'paper', it'll need to sink in to form a word. If it doesn't sink, in this case, a hard (?) sand, then there won't be a word formed....UNLESS you use marker or paint or whatever that you use to write something. Well, then I guess 'writing on the sand' works just fine too.

Jesie S.
Medan, Fri, 17 July 2015.