After the Ramadan month of fasting, Muslims celebrate Eid al Fitr with a day of prayers, feasts and family visits.

Capital cities including Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut were crowded with worshippers heading to mosques and cemeteries.

Many Muslims visit the graves of their loved ones after the early morning prayer on the first day of Eid al Fitr.

Visitors bring bouquets of flowers, jugs of water for plants and brooms to clean gravestones.

"After the Eid prayer we always visit our dead... to pray and pay our respects, may God have mercy and forgive them on this blessed day," said Atheer Mohamed in Baghdad's Azamiya cemetery.

Islam's holidays follow a lunar calendar.

But some countries rely on astronomical calculations rather than physical sightings.

This frequently leads to disagreements between religious authorities in different countries - and sometimes in the same country - over the start date of Eid al Fitr.