As one religious leader in Nigeria publishes telephone numbers for the faithful to call if they spot the new moon that would signal the end of Ramadan, here is a look at how the festival of Eid - marking its conclusion - is celebrated around the world.
Palestinian women prepare sweets for sale ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan in the West Bank city of Ramallah Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
Ramadan is observed by Muslims as a month-long period of fasting from sunrise to sunset.
The beginning and end of Ramadan are marked by the lunar Islamic calendar – the date varies slightly each year – and observance of Ramadan varies between countries.
In Kuwait people seen eating, drinking or smoking during Ramadan can be fined, while in Egypt sales of alcohol are banned during the month.
The holiday of Eid al-Fitr – which translates from Arabic as "breaking the fast" – marks the end of Ramadan.
Eid will be celebrated on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday in many countries, with families gathering to exchange presents and sit down for meals.
Here is a look at how the end of Ramadan is marked around the world.
Middle East
By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
In Lebanon, Thursday marks the end of Ramadan, a Holy month of daytime fasting for tens of millions of Muslims across the globe. Named Eid al-Fitr, the last day of Ramadan is a time when family members call on friends and relatives, pray over the graves of lost loved ones, or give gifts and indulge in a gluttonous feast.
For the wealthy Lebanese who shop in glitteringly luxuriant stores of downtown Beirut, Eid al-Fitr is a time of exchanging expensive gifts.
Traditionally families have bought clothes for children or given them money. But as the consumerism of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies affects Lebanon, popularly known as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’, the gifts have come to include Gucci handbags and Chanel perfume.
There is even a cosmetics company that has started selling nail varnishes that are considered "halal" - forbidden - by devotees. The Inglot commercial website shows off the colourful pots of polish alongside serious blogs that consider the core values of Ramadan and of Islam as a whole.
This Ramadan glamour could not be more far removed for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have come to Lebanon in flight from the civil war that rages in neighbouring Syria.
More than half a million Syrians have now moved to Lebanon– one in three people in this country are now refugees. After two and half years of war, many people’s savings have finished. Work is hard to come by, forcing tens of thousands to live in shacks made of whatever material they can salvage.
Religious requirements during Ramadan encourage charity, and hundreds of Lebanese and wealthier Syrians ran money collections, or volunteered as chefs to cook iftar, the meal that breaks the day’s fast at sunset, for the poor. Mosques, and in some cases churches in this multi-confessional society opened their doors to provide free food.
By Robert Tait, Jerusalem
For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, this year's Eid-el Fitr will provide a welcome opportunity to visit beach resorts in Israel, such as Jaffa, Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Israel's civil administration – which oversees civilian life in the occupied territories – has issued at least 100,000 permits for West Bank Palestinians to cross to the Israeli side of the Green Line during Ramadan, Maariv newspaper reported. Permits are said to have been issued more generously than in recent years.
Many will use their permits to worship at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City. Thousands will converge on the mosque – the third holiest site in Islam – to hear a senior cleric deliver Salat el-Eid prayers on Thursday morning if, as expected, Ramadan is declared to have been ended.
Otherwise, Palestinians mark the end of Ramadan by feasting and giving.
Families will spend the three-day Eid period visiting relatives and close friends. Many will go to cemeteries to pay respects to the dead.
According to custom, men will give cash gifts to female family members. In some villages, more traditional presents are given – such as clothes, olive oil and meat.
In Gaza, a coastal strip where 1.7 million Palestinian's live, people are preparing by shopping for a date-filled confectionery called mamool and a salty fish known as saseekh. The latter will be used to break the fast on the first day of Eid.
Asia
By David Eimer, Bangkok
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, celebrated the end of Ramadan in traditional fashion with mosques packed out and the poor receiving alms.
For many of Indonesia's 200 million Muslims, Ramadan is the sole opportunity they get to travel back to their hometowns. An estimated 30 million migrant workers are now preparing to return to their jobs in the big cities.
An Indonesian family queues to board a passenger ship at Gilimanuk Port in Jembrana, Bali (EPA)
While fundamentalist Islamic groups in Indonesia decry the increasing commercialisation of Ramadan, the festival is a huge boon to shopping malls and restaurants. Unusually quiet during the day, with people required to fast from dawn to dusk and mostly staying inside, business booms come nightfall.
The end of Ramadan sees a sharp rise in sales of cigarettes and contraceptives, as smoking and sex are banned during the month-long period. Alcohol consumption jumps too, despite the efforts of home-grown hardline organisations such as the Islamic Defenders Front to close down bars and nightclubs.
Elsewhere in southeast Asia, there were celebrations in Malaysia, Brunei and the southern Philippines.
But in Burma, where Muslims have been targeted in deadly riots in recent months, the end of Ramadan was marked in low-key fashion by the country's estimated three million Muslims.
And in the deep south of Thailand, where a long-running insurgency pits ethnic Malay Muslims fighting for independence against the overwhelmingly Buddhist Thai state, violence continued unabated during Ramadan with daily attacks on the Thai security forces.
Africa
By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi
Public holidays to celebrate Eid al-Fitr have been announced for Thursday and Friday in many countries in Africa, home to some 15 per cent of the world's Muslims.
In Nigeria, where more than half of the 162 million population is Muslim, one religious leader published telephone numbers for the faithful to call if they spotted the new moon that would signal the end of Ramadan.
The Sultan of the northwest Sokoto state, Alhaji Sa'ad Abubakar, gave six mobile numbers for people to use.
"Muslims are requested to look out for the new moon and report its sighting to the sighting district or village head for onward communication to the Sultan,'' he said in a statement.
The end of Ramadan will be celebrated with feasts where many families will wear special dress that they have stitched or bought for the occasion.
In Kenya's majority-Muslim port city of Mombasa, the final stretch of Ramadan (kumi la mwisho, or "the last ten" in Swahili) is marked with a street festival each evening where friends meet to shop and socialise.
Businesses have reported soaring sales, among both Muslims and Christians.
"Many people shop for this Eid, Christmas, and some even buy for next Eid because they find a lot of things they like," Jelani, a vendor on the crowded Barabara ya Wasomali, told Kenya's Star newspaper.
In Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, however, al-Qaeda-linked militants have promised a series of attacks before the end of Ramadan, following coordinated explosions on Sunday.
The Gulf
By Richard Spencer - former Dubai correspondent, now based in Cairo
There is nothing like the end of Ramadan and the festival of Eid al-Fitr, Islam's Christmas, to show up the astonishing chasms that have divided the Arab world in the last sixty years.
It is, obviously for a celebration of the end of a month-long fast, a time for feasting. How well you do that now depends on where you live.
In the oil-rich and for the most part relatively stable Gulf kingdoms, Christmas is indeed an appropriate comparison. Newspapers are flooded with tips for "Eid breaks", particularly when Ramadan falls in the summer months as now. The boiling summer in the Gulf is like winter in northern climes, where getting away from the weather is a must-do for any family of means.
Istanbul is currently in fashion. The recent protests in the city were in part down to redevelopments aimed at Gulf investors and second-homers, mirroring their celebrated "taste", not shared by all the natives. Expats head for luxury sea-side resorts, with Oman popular for those who don't want to board a plane.
Those who stay behind eat. Locals will suddenly start talking about dishes you have never heard of before and which are certainly not on offer at your local Lebanese restaurant: there is more to Arab cuisine than kebabs and hummus, it's just outsiders don't often see it. Many recipes, such as the "Ouzi" which is the recommendation of Abu Dhabi's National newspaper this year, feature lamb stewed with rice and spices.
The main meal will be lunch on the first day of the feast. The rest of the holiday will be spent visiting friends and relatives, where there will be extensive competition to provide the most bottomless bowls of dates and sweets.
If talk is to be believed, rather than the evidence of the eyes, a lot of time will also be spent dieting. It is one of the oft-observed ironies of the season that with days spent in rest and nights spent indulging in ever-more extravagant iftars - post-sunset meals - Ramadan is a prime time for Gulfies to put on weight.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Arab world, people will make do. In Syria, the besieged cities may - or may not - enjoy some sort of ceasefire, but celebrations will be muted, shopping dangerous. In Egypt, butchers ever since the revolution have complained that sales are down, with housewives buying the minimum they can get away with rather than the maximum to make a show.
There is one consolation, though. It is widely assumed that the army and police would not dare to try to disperse the opposition protests in Cairo during the next three days. That's probably correct; but on the other hand, with attention turned away and the streets already emptying of traffic it might just be a tempting prospect.
Europe
By Henry Samuel, Paris
French Muslims awaiting the end of Ramadan will have to wait until Wednesday night before Islamic theologists rule whether the holy month finishes today or tomorrow at sunset.
The decision to settle when to end Ramadan by spotting the new moon with the naked eye follows an extraordinary row in France over whether to scrap almost 1,400 years of Islamic tradition and use modern astronomy to determine the start and end of the holy month, and other Islamic holidays.
Ramadan traditionally begins and ends the morning after the sighting of the new crescent moon, which has in the past been delayed by a day or even two by weather.
But the French Muslim Council, CFCM, sparked chaos last month by opting to start using astronomical calculations to set the date this year and declaring July 9 the start of Ramadan - a day earlier than most of the Muslim world.
Council President Mohammad Moussaoui said the old method played havoc with French Muslims’ schedules for work, school and festivities. France’s five million Muslims are the largest Islamic minority in Europe.
Following massive uproar from French Muslims, it reversed the decision.
The same traditional method with the naked eye will be used tonight but Dalil Boubakeur, who is both the president of the CFCM and the rector of the Paris mosque, said he didn’t rule out using scientific methods in future, not, however, before “consultation”.
How the end of Ramadan is marked around the world - Telegraph
