At a mundane level, however, the prelude to Eid has been eventful, albeit in the wrong way. There have been roasting alive of people at Bashkhali, murder in a hospital, slaughtering of a businessman and abductions, unmercifully out of sync with the supposedly self-restraining month of Ramadan. While the number of people fasting in the month of Siam is growing as a positive sign, on the flip-side seem to be the growing ranks of that particular brand of people who do not blink in making profits out of the miseries of common people. Otherwise how could one explain the skyrocketing market prices that defied all exhortations and public-spirited appeals of saner segment of people? Extortion at all levels marred the pre-Eid atmospherics to no small extent.

Internationally, the confabulations at the OIC meet at Putrajaya in Malaysia poignantly portrayed the sordid realities of disunity and discord facing the Muslim Ummah. Mahathir's famous speech was basically an indictment on the leadership bankruptcy in the Islamic world being duly cashed in on by the Zionist-led scheme of things.

The stereo-typing of Islam with a terrorist stigma, slightly at a disadvantage though, as a result of the demolition of all so-called justifications for a war against Iraq, still continues. Solidarity in the Islamic world can be a fitting answer to this as the modern, timeless, scientific and liberal traditions of Islam are powerfully articulated across the world.

Eid comes with its messages of equality, fraternity and brotherhood for mankind. Let's be imbued with its quintessential spirit and prosper along the path of peace and progress. Eid Mubarak.