Muslims in Australia flocked the Lakemba mosque in Sydney's south-west for their early morning prayers. To give way for their special event, the roads leading to the mosque were blocked from traffic, ABC reported

Leader of Sydney's Muslim community, including senior New South Wales police officers, NSW premier Barry O'Farrel and Federal MP's Chris Bowen and Joe Hockey joined the celebration, according to the report.

Muslims celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr or the Festival of Breaking the Fast on the 29th evening of the month of Ramadan given that the new moon shines on that night. If the moon is extra shy during the 29th night, even if it is just a cloudy night then they fast for one more day and Eid is then celebrated on the completion of the 30th night of Ramadan.

It is forbidden for Muslims to fast during the night of Eid-ul-Fitr, hence, the night is celebrated by Muslims with merry-eating just like Christmas Eve.

Muslims are extra emotional during Eid, because if they indeed fast sincerely, they are overcome with great feeling of compassion for fellow people. A great drive to help the needy and the weak overcomes them. More importantly, they felt cleanse of any wrong doing; a kind of feeling akin to being reborn.

Also, just like Christmas, Eid-ul-Fitr is a time when family members forgive each other for any shortcomings. They thank Allah for all the blessings they received, ready to start anew.

"After this it's going to be family, so we're going to see our family, from there we'll go to the cemetery, just visit all our past members, from there come back and have a big lunch," Rarbie Ziad, 22, told ABC.

"When you walk out of the mosque after prayers you see your cousins, your friends. Eid celebrations are about family and community," another Muslim celebrating Eid told ABC.

However, some of them were half-hearted during the celebration, thinking of their family members caught in the political turmoil in Cairo, Egypt and many parts of the Middle East.

"I'm concerned that they will not have that quality time that the Egyptians used to have, the happy times. For the adults we will enjoy it as much as we can and actually pray for our families in Egypt. People in Egypt are not really settled, there are some issues with the military coup and people demanding their rights and so on. In every family there are all differing opinions, and it is not really a happy time as we used to have in Egypt," Mohammed Helel told ABC.