Tomorrow night or the day after (depending on the new moon), the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, will end and the three days of Id al-Fitr, the holiday ending the month, will begin. The Muslims occasionally complain that they don't have a lot of holidays. They basically have two: Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice). They say the reason for this is that Islam came last, after Judaism and Christianity, and God didn't have any holidays left to hand out. Most were taken by the Jews and the Christians, leaving the Muslims the few that were left. While it's true that there are festive Muslim memorial days like the birthday of the prophet Mohammed and the celebration of his nighttime journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, these are not days of rest, and life continues as normal during them.

At the end of Ramadan last year, Yasser Arafat died. The impression from the Palestinian street is that there was no intention to commemorate the anniversary of his death according to the Muslim calendar. There were no eulogies in the newspapers this year, or notices about rallies and conferences. Only in one place in the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Omariyyah school, above one of the entrances to the Al-Aqsa compound, was a large picture of Arafat hung up at the end of last week, but for some reason it has since been removed.

The Muslim year is 11 days shorter than the secular year, and therefore the first anniversary of Arafat's death will take place next week, on November 10, and that's when the official ceremonies will doubtless take place. As of now there are no preparations for commemorating the day, and senior Palestinian officials say in private meetings that it's hard for them to believe how fast the man who left such a deep impression on Palestinian national history has been forgotten.

The last Friday of Ramadan is called "the orphan," because afterward there are no more Fridays, which are days of public worship. The headline in the Palestinian Authority mouthpiece Al-Hayat Al-Jadida was: "Al-Aqsa Mosque was orphaned on Orphan Friday." The paper was referring to the low number of worshipers who prayed at the mosque last Friday: Only some 200,000, compared to about 500,000 in the peak years, when there was no closure on the territories. Most of those who came to pray this year, as during the five intifada years, were Israeli Arab Muslims from the Triangle region, the Galilee and the Negev, as well as residents of East Jerusalem and its environs.

Near the checkpoints in southern Jerusalem (near Rachel's Tomb) and in the north, near the Hadoar neighborhood, West Bank residents standing on line Friday morning were pushing, fighting and screaming, and the soldiers did not let them in. In other places, like near the barrier in Abu Dis, they passed through freely. Near Herod's Gate, three elderly women in village clothing got out of a private car and described how they managed to get there from a village near Jenin. One of them pointed to the driver, a resident of A-Ram, and said, "Allah should bless the Jews - we traveled 10 hours and passed 20 roadblocks. Without this good man we would not have arrived."

Saturday night, the 27th day of Ramadan, was Laylat al-Qadr. This is the night on which the Koran is said to have come down from the sky, and many people stay awake until the morning and pray. The Al-Aqsa compound is also crowded all night, as worshipers believe that at a set moment, the gates of heaven are receptive to their prayers and their dreams are fulfilled. In the wake of the deteriorating security situation of recent days, it was possible to hear people in East Jerusalem expressing hope over the weekend that the days of rest of Id al-Fitr would indeed be days of quiet that would allow the territories to revert to a state of calm.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian government has decided that all public institutions in the territories will be closed from tomorrow evening until next Sunday. Most of the holiday events revolve around the family, with an emphasis on relatives' visits, festive meals and trips to the graves of family members who have died over the year. If the Israel Defense Forces will also restrain its activity in the coming days, quiet will be possible.