Celebrities mark the start of Eid Al Adha, from Halima Aden to Mo Salah

As Eid Al Adha began on Monday, Muslim celebrities marked the beginning of the three-day festival with celebratory posts on social media.

From the US to the UK, and the UAE to India, famous faces across the world sent out video messages, Instagram posts and even a new song to their mass of followers.

Here are a few of those tributes.

Halima Aden

The Somali-American former model shared a few family snaps for the occasion, with a photo of her "baby" brother in traditional dress, followed by a picture of her sister's new child, Zayn. "I want to thank my beautiful sister Faduma for making me a proud aunty. Best Eid present ever!" she wrote on her Instagram Stories.

On her main feed, Aden shared a photo of herself with a group of women, captioning the post: "Eid Mubarak."

Aden first rose to fame in 2016 for sporting a hijab to compete in a US beauty pageant, although she has now taken a step back from the fashion industry, saying her career no longer aligns with her faith.

Huda Kattan

The beauty mogul often shares snippets of her Eid celebrations and regularly posts during Ramadan. This time she posted a lovely photograph of her with her daughter, Nour Giselle, to her nearly 49 million followers on Instagram, writing: "Happy Eid my loves! Wish you guys a blessed holiday! Love you all so much!"

On her Stories, she also posted a picture of a sheep-shaped cake from UAE dessert shop SugarMoo, which had "Eid Moobarak" written in icing.

Mona Kattan

Huda's sister Mona Kattan, like Aden, shared some insights into her family life for Eid Al Adha. First, she posted a couple of videos on her Instagram Stories taken with her father, Ibrahim Kattan, wishing everyone an "Eid Mubarak" and saying they were "just watching Netflix".

In subsequent posts, she is seen playing a fun game of charades with other family members and/or friends.

On her main feed, she shared a video of her top five favourite Eid fragrances.

Yusuf Islam

Cat Stevens, who changed his name to Yusuf Islam after converting to Islam in 1977, celebrated Eid by making a new announcement. It seems the singer-songwriter has a new series of religious animations for children coming out soon. He posted a short clip on social media, with "Look, I See, Yusuf Islam & Friends, coming soon", written at the end of the video.

"I wish you all the blessings of Eid, wherever you are on this Earth, particularly those lucky ones who are in the vicinity of the house of God in Makkah," the caption said.

"I hope that soon you will enjoy some of these new animation films which we will be producing for children."

Lupe Fiasco

Lupe Fiasco, whose real name is Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, released a new song of him rapping on Kali Uchis's telepatia.

"Eid Mubarak" he sings at the beginning. The track is called Jean Grey and he describes the tune as an "Eid Mubarak gift to the fans".

Jean Grey is a Marvel character with telepathic and telekinetic powers, who first appeared in The X-Men #1 comic book in 1963.

Mo Salah

Beloved Egyptian footballer Mo Salah kept it simple, writing "Happy Eid Al Adha" in Arabic on Twitter.

A devout Muslim, Salah is the forward for English Premier League club Liverpool FC and captain of the Egyptian national team. He regularly posts about his faith, particularly during Ramadan when he talks about managing fasting with his intense training schedule, something he's always adamant about doing.

Paul Pogba

Footballer Paul Pogba, who was born in France to Guinean parents and plays for English Premier League club Manchester United, is also a devout Muslim.

"Islam is not the image that everyone sees, terrorism," Pogba told The Times' LifeTimes podcast in 2019. "It's really a religion that opened my mind and that makes me, maybe, a better person."

On Tuesday, he posted a photo of himself with his wife, Maria Zulay Pogba Salaues, who is wearing a hijab, writing: "Eid Mubarak brothers and sisters." The pair are celebrating in Miami, Florida.

Hina Khan

Indian television and film actress Hina Khan shared a series of photos of herself all dressed up for Eid Al Adha, sporting a beautiful red outfit from Lucknow brand The Chikan Label.

Khan simply wrote: "Eid Mubarak", while the fashion label also posted the images on Instagram, captioning it: "Gorgeous diva slaying in our Kurta Sharara set ... isn't she looking dreamy."

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Karwaan

Producer: Ronnie Screwvala

Director: Akarsh Khurana

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Rating: 4/5

The BIO:

He became the first Emirati to climb Mount Everest in 2011, from the south section in Nepal

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By 2015, he had completed the Explorers Grand Slam

Last year, he conquered K2, the world’s second-highest mountain located on the Pakistan-Chinese border

He carries dried camel meat, dried dates and a wheat mixture for the final summit push

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Islamophobia definition

A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.

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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021

Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.

The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.

These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.

“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.

“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.

“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.

“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”

Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.

There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.

“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.

“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.

“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”