Thursday marked the official end of the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims in Airdrie and across the world.

The day, known as Eid, commemorated the end of the month while transitioning to the next month in the Islamic calendar, Shawwal.

For local Muslims, it was a different year celebrating the month as COVID-19 restrictions affected many of their traditions.

"There tends to be a lot of communal fast together," said Saaed Qureshi with the Airdrie Islamic Centre. "Those would not have happened during this month, people would have just been breaking fast with their family, rather than with friends or relatives."

Another tradition during Ramadan is communal prayers that traditionally happen every night. Qureshi said this too had to be changed, especially when the government changed capacity rules for places of worship to 15 people, midway through the month.

"It definitely restricted the number of people who were present. But we made it work. It just meant some people had to sacrifice. Sometimes what happened is that one person from a family would come for a prayer service."

Qureshi led Muslims in a final day of prayer to mark Eid at the centre in Towerlane.

On top of fasting and prayer, Qureshi noted that another aspect of Ramadan is contributing to those in the Muslim community less fortunate.

He added this year, the need for charity was especially important.

"With things that are going on as well in lots of parts of the world, a lot of tragedies in Yemen, Syria and recently what's going on in the holy lands in Palestine. It's definitely been a point for us to reflect and think of how we contribute humanity all around the world who are suffering."

This was the second straight year that COVID-19 restrictions affected Ramadan as last year the province had closed all non-essential businesses at the start of the pandemic.