Here we go again. Itโs that time of year when Malawian Muslims dust off the same tired arguments, polish their digital weapons, and prepare for another round of the moon-sighting wars. Like clockwork, every few months, our WhatsApp groups transform from spaces of Islamic brotherhood into battlefields of religious superiority.
The script never changes. Only the dates do. Whether itโs Ramadanโs end or Eid al-Adhaโs beginning, the same predictable drama unfolds with the precision of a Swiss watch. โFollow Saudi Arafa on Thursday!โ declares one camp. โFollow the local sighting – Friday is our Eid!โ fires back the other. โOne Arafa, One Ummah!โ preaches a third, immediately followed by โStop this colonial mentality!โ The digital knives are out, and community unity bleeds to death one angry emoji at a time.
This isnโt journalism โ itโs observable reality playing out on our phones every few months with depressing regularity. The same communities that united online during COVID-19 lockdowns, sharing prayers and support, now fracture into warring factions over lunar calendars with the reliability of seasonal rains. The irony would be comedic if it werenโt so destructive, and if we hadnโt seen this exact movie played out dozens of times before.
What makes this recurring nightmare particularly galling is how quickly these digital arguments escalate beyond theology into personal attacks โ the same personal attacks, using the same inflammatory language, targeting the same fault lines that split us last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. Weโve perfected the art of communal self-destruction and turned it into a biannual tradition.
The real casualties arenโt the theological positions โ itโs the community bonds that get weaker with each repetition. Every divided Eid becomes practice for the next one. Families create separate WhatsApp groups to avoid the same arguments they had six months ago. Friends unfriend each other over moon-sighting posts with the same content they shared last year. Islamic organizations lose members not over doctrine, but over the same digital drama that plays out like a broken record.
Weโre watching the slow-motion disintegration of Muslim community in Malawi, and weโre doing it voluntarily, repeatedly, predictably. The children absorbing these cyclical digital fights are learning that religious difference means perpetual conflict, that community bonds are expendable, and that this destructive pattern is just โhow things are done.โ
Meanwhile, the substantive conversations that should be happening โ about community welfare, charitable giving, spiritual preparation for Eid โ get drowned out by the familiar noise of our self-imposed chaos. Weโve become so skilled at fighting each other over the same issues that weโve forgotten how to talk about anything else.
Other communities have recognized this destructive dynamic and broken free from it. Theyโve created unified systems, learned from their mistakes, and prioritized community harmony over individual interpretation. They understood that some battles arenโt worth fighting repeatedly, especially when the only guaranteed outcome is mutual destruction.
The solution isnโt complicated โ itโs the same solution weโve ignored through dozens of previous cycles. It means religious leaders taking responsibility for ending this recurring nightmare instead of perpetuating it. It means community members choosing not to participate in the same destructive patterns every few months. It means recognizing that weโve had this exact argument before, and it didnโt end well then either.
As we approach yet another divided Eid celebration โ the same division weโve orchestrated countless times before โ perhaps the question isnโt who benefits from this chaos, but what we lose. Every divided Eid costs us trust, weakens our institutions, and teaches our children that being right matters more than being together. The beneficiary isnโt any individual or group โ itโs dysfunction itself.
The technology in our pockets was supposed to help us build the modern ummah. Instead, weโre using it to perfect the destruction of the ancient one. That may be the real sacrifice this Eid โ not the animals weโre debating when to slaughter, but the community bonds weโre systematically destroying, one predictable argument at a time.
