The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (772 page)

Fen-yang Shan-chao
(early collector of k
ans)
:

see
K
AN
.

 
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Feria
.

In Christian liturgical usage, a weekday on which no feast or festival (despite Lat.,
feria
, ‘feast’) falls. The word ‘weekday’ is now more common than feria.

 
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Festivals and fasts
.

Festivals are celebrations, usually having an ordered and ritualized (see
RITUAL
) character. Festivals arise from the fact that ‘no man is an island’, or more exactly, from the fact that no one can live in isolation on an island in the midst of life: we are selves in a field of selves, requiring each other for the very process of life. Festivals give communal expression to the meaning of that process, in a shared affirmation of value and commitment. So universal is the religious fact of celebration that
Durkheim
was able to make it a quintessential feature of religion itself: individuals experience the social as a fact over and above their own individuality, and therefore recognize this factual reality outside themselves in symbolic forms and ritual actions.
In that context, festivals manifest the demands of social existence in many different ways. At the simplest level, they affirm the worth of individuals in a social context (e.g. birthday parties, anniversaries). They mark
rites
of passage; they express the dependence of human life on food and water, which are themselves uncertain in the context of the passing of seasons or the unpredictability of hunting; they mark occasions in the history of the community; they celebrate the epiphanies of power or grace which have offered the transformation of life in the direction of hope, especially when these have come from God or from the source of life itself—e.g. ti'en, Heaven, or the
Tao
. Such festivals are marked by trust and thanksgiving; and the dramatic nature of the celebration ties drama and the theatre to ritual in ways which have not yet been separated in India or China.
But festival cannot be divorced from fast. Fasts express the public recognition of unworthiness—to receive benefits, for example, or to participate in the community itself; or again, fasting may express a human desire to move beyond a present circumstance into some better outcome: little of worth is achieved without cost. Fasting may be isolated and specific, or they may be prolonged over a regular period each year: sawm, observed by Muslims during the daylight hours of the month of
Rama
n
, is one of the
Five Pillars of Islam
. Fasting may equally be a form of protest against perceived injustice or tyranny, as it may also be a form of preparation for some endeavour. The preparation of Jesus for his ministry sent him for ‘forty days and forty nights’ into the wilderness—a preparation which was imitated by Christians during the seasons of (originally)
Advent
and of
Lent
.
The conservative importance of festivals is precisely what seems negative about them to reformers. There is, in this respect, a constant tension in religions, exemplified in the Jewish
prophets
and their protest against relying on the proper observance of festivals and fasts as the definition of appropriate behaviour before God. Yet even religious reformers find that the human need for festival and fast has to be satisfied.
Judaism
Among Jews, the festivals and fasts (following a lunar
calendar
) are a mixture of agricultural and New Year observances, combined with those which commemorate the history of God's dealings with his people. The days of festival are known as (in the singular)
yom tov
, ‘a good day’. Those commanded in the
Pentateuch
include the three pilgrim festivals (
Passover
,
Shavu'ot
, and Sukkot), the
New Year
(
Rosh
ha-Shanah), the
Day of Atonement
(Yom Kippur), and the first day of the lunar month (Rosh
odesh). Later festivals are the feast of
Esther
(
Purim
), the feast of Lights (
anukkah
), and various memorial days. Fixed fast days were first mentioned by the
prophet
Zechariah
(ch. 8. 19); 10 Tevet commemorates the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem; 17
Tammuz
, the breaking of the walls; 9
Av
, the destruction of the
Temple
, and 3 Tishri, the assassination of
Gedaliah
. The other two fasts of the Jewish calendar are 13 Adar, Fast of
Esther
, and 14 Nisan, Fast of the Firstborn (commemorating the ten plagues in Egypt).
Christianity
Christian festivals follow an annual cycle, beginning with the advent of Christ and his birth, and tracing his life on earth: they culminate in his
ascension
and status in the Holy and Undivided
Trinity
. But at the same time, they commemorate and celebrate faithful followers of Christ, the
saints
,
martyrs
and
Doctors of the Church
. Fasting is designed to strengthen the spiritual life by overcoming more immediate attractions of ‘the world, the flesh and the
devil
’ (
Book of Common Prayer
). The observance of regular fasting began with weekly fast days, Wednesday and Friday. To these were added the fast of Lent; in the E., three further forty-day fasts throughout the year; and in the W.,
vigil
fasts and
ember days
. The only two fast days now are
Ash
Wednesday and
Good Friday
.
Christian feasts are of three main kinds:

(i) 
Sunday
,
(ii) movable feasts, and
(iii) immovable feasts. The movable feasts (
Easter
, and
Pentecost
seven weeks later) vary in date because of their origin in the Jewish lunar
calendar
. See also
CALENDAR
.

Islam
Among Muslims (who follow a lunar calendar), the major festivals and fasts are linked to the command of the
Qur'
n
or to the life of
Mu
ammad
. They are Ra's al-‘
m (New Year, 1 Mu
arram); ‘