Following tradition, well to do Muslims celebrate Eid-al Adha by sacrificing a cow, sheep, goat, or camel. Most of the meat is eaten by people who are well-fed and want for little. As a result, Eid is now a celebration marked by excessive and unwarranted eating of meat. This is accompanied by displays of brutal slaughter of millions of sacrificial animals, and its celebration, with the belief that it is pleasing to Allah.
The spirit of Eid-al Adha is supposed to be a remembrance of, and reflection on Prophet Ibrahim’s unflagging faith. As a test of his faith, Allah called on Ibrahim to sacrifice his son but replaced the son with a ram to be sacrificed in his stead. This story of Prophet Ibrahim’s sacrifice of the ram is shared across the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths, but only Muslims continue the practice of animal sacrifice.
Let us recall that blood sacrifice was practiced in the times before the Prophets, many times in the form of a young man or woman, as noted by H.G. Wells in his book “Short History of the World”:
“But in the world of 12,000 to 20,000 years ago, it would seem that whenever seed time came around to the Neolithic peoples, there was a human sacrifice. And it was not the sacrifice of any mean or outcast person; it was usually of a chosen youth or maiden, a youth more often, who was treated with profound deference and even worship.”
Based on anthropological evidence we know that human and animal sacrifices were practiced in many cultures around the world. Human sacrifice continued in the Middle East until Biblical times, as seen in the story of Jephtaph, a ruler of Israelites, who sacrificed his daughter to thank God for giving him victory in battle. The description below is from the Book of Judges in Chapter 11 of the Old Testament in the Bible:
The spirit of the Lord came upon Jephtah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and through Mizpah-Gilead as well, and from there he went on to the Ammonites. Jephtaph made a vow to the Lord. “ If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, “ whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the Lord, I shall offer him up as a sacrifice.”
Jephtaph then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his power, so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them, from Aroer to the approach of Minnith ( twenty cities in all) and as far as Abelkeramin. Thus, were the Ammonites brought into subjection by the Israelites. When Jephtaph returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing.
She was an only child: he had neither son or daughter beside her. When he saw her, he rent his garments and said, “ Alas, daughter, you have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the Lord and I cannot retract. ” “Father, she replied, “you have made a vow to the Lord. Do with me as you have vowed, because the Lord has wrought vengeance for you on your enemies in the Ammonites.” Then she said to her father, “ Let me have this favor. Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains to mourn my virginity with my companions.” “Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months. So, she departed with her companions and mourned her virginity on the mountains. At the end of the two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed.”
But Jephtaph’s action was condemned by many Israelite religious leaders, thus demonstrating growth in spiritual sensibilities with the passage of time.
Replacing human sacrifice with an animal is an important aspect of Prophet Ibrahim’s story, demonstrating a shift in the tradition of sacrifice to a less brutal form. But that was twenty-five hundred years ago. Spiritual evolution must continue, and today we need to ask ourselves: Do I have to kill an animal to demonstrate my faith? We do not.
The principle of sacrifice is to give up something precious in the service of Allah, as it is said in aya (3:92), You will not attain piety till you spend from that which you love, and whatever you spend, truly Allah knows it. Cattle were the main source of wealth, and of food, in the Arabian desert in ancient times. As such, a major vehicle for charity was distributing the meat of your livestock among the poor —a true act of sacrifice in those times. This was especially the case during Hajj, where there was no other food for the large gatherings that included many poor people.
Prophet Muhammad’s grandfather was Abdul Muttalib, whose grand father was Abdu Manaf, whose father was Qusayy who was Chief of the Quraysh tribe and in-charge of taking care of Hajj pilgrims. In his biography of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Ibn Ishaq1 writes:
The Rifada was a tax which the Quraysh used to pay from their property to Qusayy at every festival. With it he used to provide food for the pilgrims who were unable to afford their own provisions. Qusayy had laid this as a duty upon Quraysh, saying: ‘You are God’s neighbours, the people of his temple and sanctuary. The pilgrims are God’s guests and the visitors to His temple and have the highest claim on your generosity; so provide food and drink for them during the pilgrimage until they depart out of your territory’. Accordingly they used to pay him every year a tax on their flocks and he used to provide food for the people therefrom, while they were at Mina, and his people carried out this order of his during the time of ignorance until Islam came.
Syed Ahmed Khan was a prominent Muslim reform thinker and scholar in India in the 19th century who devoted his life to free Muslim people from damaging beliefs and practices. He is known for establishing the first Muslim college with a modern curriculum that included teaching of science subjects. He also published a tafseer of the Quran. He wrote the following about how Eid-al Adha was celebrated at that time2:
The Quran does not give us any religious reason for animal sacrifice during Hajj. Mecca was a desolate place where no crops grew. Finding food was a problem when such a large number of people gathered. That is why many people brought animals with them, and others bought them in Mecca. They slaughtered these animals to feed themselves and also others. This is the only reason for which sacrifice during Hajj is mentioned in the Quran. The practice in the present time of killing animals more than for immediate needs such that hundreds of thousands are killed and abandoned in the wilderness, where even wolves and vultures cannot eat them, this has no relation to the religion of Islam.
Mirza
Muhammad Farhani3 went for Hajj in 1885, about the time when Syed
Ahmed Khan wrote his commentary on the Quran. He gave the following account of
the ritual sacrifice:
On this holiday about 200,000 sacrificial animals were slaughtered at Mina. They had prepared large pits as a place for performing the sacrifice. Nevertheless, they threw many of the sheep’s heads and trotters, the guts, flesh and bones of the sacrificed animals amid the tents and along the road. It was made filthy everywhere as far as the Khayf Mosque. Even though two hundred workers, who are street cleaners, work under the careful scrutiny of their supervisors, and clean all the filth from the roads, and though they pour a mixture of lime over the pits where the sheep are killed and cover them up, still the air is infected by the odor of the carcasses to the extent that smelling it causes disease. For this reason illness and plague first appear at Mina.
The following is an eyewitness account by Jalal Ale-Ahmad4 of the Hajj sacrifice in the 1980s:
A word about this slaughterhouse. It is a huge area surrounded by a wall with two entrances. There are large pits dug and prepared in groups, with mounds of earth scooped out of the pits and piled up higher than the walls, visible from the outside. All the ground is covered with carcasses, goats, sheep and camels; there are no cattle to be seen. The muscles quiver in freshly killed carcasses. Children, knives in hand, play with their remains. One’s feet are constantly stepping in blood and entrails, and I held up the hem of my ihram as I walked. One individual wearing the ihram was making a film with a 16 mm camera. Two or three employees of the “Office of Health and Security” were with him. Everyone was standing around holding dull knives. They decapitated a goat and threw the head to one side. A young boy came and drove the point of a knife into the goat’s throat, and the goat went into violent convulsions as the blood spurted out of its throat. It was clear that the boy was experienced and knew what to do to make the carcass dance. I don’t know where he thrust the knife to make the convulsions greater. In any case he knew something that I did not know. A camel lying on the ground jerked twice—from one end to the other—by the time I got to him and that was all. The blood coming out of a hand’s- width gash in his neck was frothy, looking like fluffy light purple soapsuds on the ground. Such a huge carcass ! A man had thrust a dagger into its neck above the sternum right where it stood, in the tuft of hair at the base of the neck. He made a hand’s width slash downward, and when the animal tried to turn its head he struck it in the nose with his fist. The animal roared and tried to run, but its legs were hobbled. It fell on the ground. It tried to get up, but the blood spurted out, it couldn’t, and it slowly, slowly collapsed. It lowered its head gradually until it touched the ground. When I got there it was gasping: this stopped a moment later. Then two jerks, and that was the end.
Even today, the Haj sacrifice of millions of terrified animals in the slaughterhouse in Mina is carried out by the pilgrims who are not trained as butchers or by paid butchers who are rushing to do as many slaughter jobs as possible to maximize their wages and have little or no interest in how their victims are treated.
It is noteworthy that the imams and scholars have believed, and continue to believe, such killing to be part of worship. They did not, and do not, consider the appalling brutality to be objectionable. Their constant recitation of “Allah is most Compassionate and most Merciful” does not invoke compassion for animals.
Over the centuries including today, the scholars have prescribed animal sacrifice also for those who are not at Hajj. Ritual slaughter of animals at the time of Eid-al Adha remains widespread in many Muslim countries. In most places the slaughter is carried out on the streets. People, including children, gather to watch and it becomes a celebration of killing and brutality. The people believe that this act pleases Allah. Many are so proud of their piety in the act of killing a tied and frightened animal that they post pictures and videos on YouTube.
Let us remember that Cows, lambs, sheep and camels are beings with feelings. To terrify them and to cause them suffering is inhumane. It invites retribution from Allah, and it is against the spirit of compassion.
According to the rules of sharia related to Eid-al Adha sacrifice, one third of the meat is consumed by the family, one third is sent as gift to extended family and only one third is given to the poor. People who engage in animal sacrifice are often affluent. Since the relatives of well to do people usually are also well off, most of the meat is consumed by people who are not lacking in food. The meat distribution is considered a mark of piety, but it has also become a display of wealth. The pressure to purchase and sacrifice an animal places undue burdens on those who cannot afford it. Charity thus plays a small role in this ghoulish ritual.
It is important to realize that this large-scale animal slaughter is a major source of loss for Muslim people. There are desperate needs that are overlooked by the way money is spent on animal sacrifice. As an example, the Eid al Adha sacrifice in Pakistan was estimated to cost $ 2 billion5 in 2010 when the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was assessed by the World Bank6 as $ 177 Billion, i.e., the money spent on animal sacrifice in one day exceeded one percent of the country’s annual GDP. Again, in 2016, the amount spent on animal sacrifice was estimated as $ 3.5 Billion7 , more than one percent of the Gross Domestic Product of $ 279 Billion6.
In Pakistan and many other sections of the world where Muslims live, there is an abject lack of proper education, healthcare and sanitation. There remain uncountable women and children who are either homeless, or abused, without recourse to justice. Prejudice against and mistreatment of Muslim and non-Muslim minority populations is widely prevalent.
Moreover, nutrition science has revealed that eating excessive amount of meat is unhealthy because of its content of saturated fats.
Research8 shows that inflicting violence towards those who are less powerful is a behavior that is easily transferred. People who abuse animals also tend to be violent in their families. This suggests that the way Eid al Adha is currently celebrated, by public slaughter of animals and rejoicing as you see their death, coarsens people’s sensibilities and cruelty in other forms becomes more acceptable to them.
It is a matter of urgency that observance of Eid al Adha be radically reformed. Sermons about it should focus on the principle of sacrifice as giving away some of what we have to help reduce human and animal suffering. The imam can ask people to think and identify the needs of the destitute and the helpless in the community, or in the world, and then make a significant donation to help them.
- A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad; A Translation of Ishaq’s Sirat Raul Allah, p. 55, Oxford University Press,1967.
- Tafseer-ul-Quran by Syed Ahmed Khan (1887)
- A Shiite Pilgrimage: The journey of an Iranian notable to the holy cities of Arabia through Iran, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.” Translation of the Safarnameh of Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Farhani. University of Texas Press, 1990.
- Jalal Al-e Ahmad, ‘Lost in the Crowd’, translated by John Green, pages 88-90, Three Continents Press, Washington, D.C., 1985.
- Asian Correspondent, Bakra Eid: The Cost of The Sacrifice, November 16, 2010.
- https://data.worldbank.org/country/Pakistan
- www.Dawn.com, Eidul Azha Spending Shrinks in Pakistan, September 5, 2017.
- Frank Ascione and Phil Arkow, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Animal Abuse; linking the Circles of Compassion for Prevention and Intervention” Purdue University Press, 1999.