Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Feast of the Sacrifice
Monday, January 1, 2007

We've had a lot of conversations in my family over the last few days about the annual Feast of the Sacrifice (Eid ul-Adha) now underway in the Muslim world. It was this festival that was responsible for the Breaking Camel News yesterday and was reportedly one of the main reasons Saddam's execution was hastened to Saturday, to beat the holiday. My parents are on vacation in Morocco and report that the entire country is shut down as sheep are paraded through the streets. One group held this was just the Festival of the Sheep, others that it was part of the Haj, others that it was part of Ramadan.

Eid ul-Adha is one of two Eids, or festivals, that Muslims celebrate as part of the annual Haj, or pilgrimage. The Eid marks Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. Unlike many press reports, and even the account in Wikipedia, the son is not named in the Koran. As I discuss at length in my book Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, one group of Islamic interpreters said the son was Isaac, because the Bible says so, and the others insisted it was Ishmael. Over time, because of politics (Islam's battle with Judaism and Christianity), the Ishmael came won. The custom today is to sacrifice an animal and give the meat to the poor.

But problems often occur, as this account my brother forwarded makes clear:

More than a thousand "amateur butchers" in Turkey spent the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha in emergency wards Sunday after stabbing themselves or suffering other injuries while sacrificing startled animals. Of at least 1,413 people treated at hospitals, four were severely injured, crushed under the weight of large animals that fell on top of them, the Anatolia news agency reported. Muslims sacrifice cows, sheep, goats and bulls during the four-day religious holiday, a ritual commemorating the provision of a ram for Abraham to sacrifice as he was about to slay his son. They share the meat with friends, family and neighbors and give part of it to the poor.

At the risk of making light, it reminds me of reports one sometimes hears in New York about the number of visits to the emergency room of amateurs cutting their hands while slicing into a bagel.

Posted by B Feiler at 12:42 PM
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