spare the poor goat or lamb or cows life. The purpose of sacrifice is to understand the spirit of parting with what you hold dear (your wealth), it is not some muqabla against four-legged animals.
Please pause and think … That, after all, is what religion should make us do rather than blindly following ritual.
According to the many organizations that will perform the sacrifice for you if you live abroad, the cost of one goat/sheep is US$ 160 in the US (that is more than one month’s salary for a college educated Pakistani professional). The price in Pakistan is cheaper, but not by much. Only the well wheeled can afford it. The Poor cannot even budget for a kilo of meat a month.
Is there a better way to ‘sacrifice’ the 150-200 dollars or the Rs. 10,000 or more in the name of Allah that is useful to His bandas? A way that captures the spirit of sacrifice that qurbani entails and helps us meet our religious obligation as well as the social welfare and redistribution that is its deeper purpose?
The Qur’an reminds us that Allah looks at intent not the blood. Maybe we too should pay heed to the intent of qurbani? For those who want to sacrifice this writer instead, please read Chapter 22, Verse 37 from the Holy Qur’an (I have looked at translations by Marmaduke, Yusufali, Asad and Usmani) and they all talk about your own devotion, piety, God-consciousness and taqwa that reaches Him.
The meat from the sacrificial animal is intended to be divided into three parts: 1/3rd each for your self, family and friends, and for the needy and the poor. I would suggest we fore go our share, and give the whole amount to the poor including poor relations. Charity and alms should be given throughout the year, and many people do. But with this added emphasis around Eid ul Adha I would suggest we consider giving more to the poor including poor relations.
Allah looks at intent not the blood. What better way to celebrate this Eid?
On my last visit I saw a lot of people drive up to a certain “hotel” (Pinglish for restaurant) and pay the owner X rupees to feed X number of hungry folks lined up outside. That is a noble idea. But would it not be better better to teach them to fish?
A manual sewing machine for a widow or unemployed poor woman? Tuition Fees or books for a poor student? Some money to ease the days for the unemployed people? A small monthly stipend to the poor that may bring a ray of hope in their lives and may perhaps deter them from abandoning their children to the fogs of terrorist factories?
We can think of many ways to make Him happy and spare the lamb. May Allah bless you and your family.
Note: This is based on an earlier post published on temporal’s blog Baithak.
Somebody writes:
“The real think is your neeyat. If it is really for Allah it will be accepted and if it is for show it does not matter what sunnat you follow or not.”
If one’s neeyat (intention) is to help a poor but then he goes to the market and buys a bakrA to sacrifice; the poor goes without any help even if this sacrifice is accepted by Allah.
The neeyat (intention) is simply a religious (Islamic!) excuse for inaction or wrong action.
AHsn
@Abdul Hai,
“Shariah is all about justice, mercy, wisdom, and good. Thus any ruling that replaces justice with injustice, mercy with its opposite, common good with mischief, or wisdom with nonsense, is a ruling that does not belong to the Shariah, even if it is claimed to be so according to some interpretation.”
Sums it up perfectly. Thank you!
It is one of the few acts that injects dynamics in the stagnant economy… Besides, a number of philanthropic organizations sponsor this event for the needy and that by itself is a good thing to do..
This practice is OK as long as it does not put pressure on those who cannot afford…
I strongly disagree with this post.
Many people say prayers(Namaz) for show off or at expense of “time” (Time is money in this fast paced world) so should we quit saying prayers?
Why terminate an essential ritual on the basis of point that its cruelty to animal or we should give money to poor.
Sadly speaking, we are a bunch of extremist scoundrels not a nation ( having extreme thoughts either totally liberal,so called moderate or total conservative,totally positive thinking or totally sadistic souls). We have no rational thinkers among us.
In my professional capacity, as young food technologist, I will suggest to use this event for economic benefit by developing livestock of the nation,meat industry and a proper clean livestock and its end use system.
Cleanliness is half faith, but sadly, we scatter too much litter around….
PS: For the people who suggest that we should set up fund for poor instead of doing qurbani,I would add this eid gives highest quality of protein diet to the poor (if meat reaches them) who are unable to have even 365 meals a year and rarely any meal with some nutritious stuff.
@Lateef(November 26th, 2009 11:11 pm) & other posters:
Do you mean to say Allah is “blood-thirsty” or greedy of meat?
Logical answer is a big No.
Allah has created humans as well as animals.No one but only Allah has a right to take lives out of them.
Why don’t we muslims try to cut the throats of our sons hoping that a lamb would die instead? Can a muslim woman give birth to a single baby lamb or a baby camel? Why have we hypocrites on our own replaced the “son” with the poor lamb? I just want an answer to this.
Sacrifice is only symbolic, there is no need to show it off to Allah year by year or generation by generation.
It simply means your and everyone else’s life belongs to Allah.
Carnivores animals like lions,tigers etc. never kill animals en-masse in the name of religion or to dump their meat into fridges.They kill animals only for their survival. So any comparison/reference made by some other poster is meaningless.
Continue misinterpretting the religion and keep on finishing Allah’s beautiful creations…Afterall its your own choice!
And yes thanks to author temporal and other posters for open-minded discussions here.