Eid Al Fitr 2022 UAE holidays: Start date, Ramadan end date, and long weekend details

We are half way through the month of Ramadan, and it’s looking like UAE families are in for a bumper long weekend for the Eid Al Fitr holidays 2022.

The end of Ramadan is marked in the UAE by a holiday for both the public and private sectors, usually for three days.

In 2022, Eid Al Fitr is expected to fall on Monday May 2, according to official predictions by Ibrahim Al-Jarwan, member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences. Then the Eid holidays will be four days from Ramadan 29 until Shawwal 3, based on the Islamic calendar, according to government website U.ae.

This could mean almost a full working week off for many UAE families, with the public holiday looking likely to fall between Monday May 2 and Wednesday 4 May inclusive.

When you include the usual 2.5 weekend days of the afternoon of Friday 29 April, Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st May for schools, many schoolchildren could be looking at almost six days off in a row as Ramadan draws to a close.

Eid Al Fitr Holidays 2022: When will dates be confirmed?

Eid Al Fitr Holiday dates are subject to confirmation because the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar cycle, meaning it is tied to the moon’s phases. The Islamic (or Hijri) calendar features 12 months, which run for 29 or 30 days, the start and end of which are determined by the appearance of the new crescent moon.

Ramadan is the eighth month of the Hijri calendar and this is when when the month-long period of prayer and fasting for Muslims happens each year.  The first day of Shawwal – the ninth month of the Hijri calendar – heralds the beginning of Eid-Al-Fitr and the end of Ramadan. There is a moon-sighting committee dedicated to spotting the moon and the exact date of  Eid-Al-Fitr will depend on when this committee spots the crescent of the Shawwal moon. Once the crescent has been spotted the committee can then announce the start of the Eid Al Fitr celebrations.

Ibrahim Al-Jarwan, member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences, said this April that it is expected that the month of Shawwal and Eid Al-Fitr will begin on Monday, May 2nd.

 

According to Al-Jarwan the new lunar month will start on Sunday, May 1 at 12:28 AM and by sunset of that day, “the crescent sighting will be possible in all Arab countries where we expect complete agreement on the first of Shawwal and Eid al-Fitr”.

Eid al-Fitr is the first of the two official Eid holidays celebrated within Islam. The religious festival is celebrated by Muslims worldwide, and marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan.

Eid Al Fitr means the ‘festival of breaking the fast’, referring to a celebration of the end of daily fasting through the month of Ramadan.

The celebration, usually marked with a feast, is held on the first day of Shawwal, the next month in the Islamic calendar.

During Ramadan Muslims do not eat or drink anything between dawn and sunset. In the UAE, government working hours and school operating hours are reduced in order to assist those fasting, and to allow more time for spiritual reflection and spending time with family. Find out what school operating hours are during Ramadan 2022.

However, as this is an Islamic holiday, the exact dates are subject to moon sightings. The number of days off could also change closer to the time – and they may differ between the private and public sector.

The fact that the Eid Holidays 2022 will fall in early May means that they occur just a few weeks after UAE school children will have just enjoyed either two or three weeks off for Spring Break. Do UAE schoolchildren have more time off for school holidays  than children in other parts of the world?

Find out all the UAE long weekends left to look forward to this year.

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