Old Eid cards and Ramadan dua booklets: do they need to be buried?

A drawer of Eid cards going back a decade, a stack of Ramadan planners from mosques and charities — here's how to tell what qualifies, and what to do with a year's worth at once.

Every Ramadan and Eid, cards, planners, and dua booklets come through the door — from family, from the mosque, from charities running iftar appeals. Almost nobody throws them away as they arrive, and almost nobody deals with them afterwards either. A few years of this and it's a drawer, or a shoebox, that nobody wants to open.

The test: does it carry the name of Allah or a Qur'anic verse?

Not every card or booklet needs special treatment. The line is the same one we use for everything else: if the paper carries the name of Allah, the Messenger ﷺ, or Qur'anic verses, it needs respectful disposal rather than the recycling bin. If it's purely decorative — a generic "Happy Eid" card with no Arabic text or verses — ordinary recycling is fine.

In practice, most Eid cards and nearly all Ramadan dua booklets do qualify:

• Eid cards printed with Qur'anic verses, du'as, or the name of Allah in Arabic calligraphy
• Ramadan planners and daily dua booklets handed out by mosques or charities
• Taraweeh guides or juz'-by-juz reading schedules that quote verses directly
• Charity appeal leaflets that open with a Qur'anic verse or hadith

A card that just says "Eid Mubarak" in English with a picture of a crescent moon and no Arabic text doesn't carry the same weight — recycle it as you would any other card.

The practical approach

Cards and booklets are light, so — as with loose Quran pages and worksheets — the sensible approach is to collect rather than send individually. Keep a drawer or envelope specifically for the ones that qualify, and go through it once a year, ideally in the weeks before the next Ramadan when you're likely to be tidying anyway.

For the fuller picture of what counts as Islamic literature and what doesn't, see our guide on what can (and can't) be buried.

Sending them to us

Pack the accumulated cards and booklets firmly in an envelope or small box and weigh the parcel — a year or two's worth from an average household will usually be close to our £10 minimum order.

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