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.
there is no one called temporal. this is just owner of this site not having guts to put his own name behind this crazy idea. anyone who does not sacrifice animal is not a muslim. plain and simple. if you think animal should not be slaughtered you are not muslim. it is about sacrificing animal and you will be rewarded for the blood and the meat that you give in His name. that is purpose of qurbani. if you do not believe this you might as well be other religions because sacrificing animal is duty. Allah is not interested in your social policy or communist ideas and helping poors. he will see if you gave qurbani to Him and sacrificed animal in his way. Ideal is to sacrifice camel because that is what Prophet (PBUH) did, others are accepted as secondary only.
Are people even reading the article they are commenting on?
No one is saying qurbani (sacrifice) is wrong or anything about Islam being right or wrong.
What is being said is that killing animals is not the only way to sacrifice, it is better to give to better causes on Eid and think about the real spirit of sacrifice rather than ritual for its own sake.
@Meengla, again if some people are doing it the wrong way it does not mean that the whole ritual is wrong, how many time you think of the poor when you are buying something luxurious things, we have been ordered to sacrifice an animal and we will do it, I agree that it should be done in clean and proper way, but if some people are doing it the wrong way it does not mean that we stop it all together, instead we should be telling those people how to do it. But qurabi on this eid should be there
The way Bakra Eid is observed in Pakistan does not bring up any sentiments of ‘Qurbani’ (sacrifice). We all know that, don’t we? Then why by hypocritical about it and pretend that there is actually any ‘sacrifice’ going on? How many people really contemplate Abraham’s sacrifice when slitting a goat’s throat? And while we pretend to sacrifice we brutalize the society by open displays of crying animals bathing in their blood while being watched by kids. While we pretend to ‘sacrifice’ we literally let blood flows through our streets….
Yes, it brutalizes the society and bringing up the hidden Nazi death camps into this debate really is not a valid comparison.
There is nothing Islamic about it because there is no real sense of sacrifice involved. And there are other cleaner, better ways to distribute the wealth. So long as Pakistanis eat meat the goat herders will have their goats ‘consumed’ by the society. So long as there is money in a society it will find ways to be distributed in however uneven ways. Pakistanis are quite generous donors. They don’t need the hollow pseudo-Islamic spectacles of rivers of blood and brutalization to channel their donations and acts of charity to the society.
Please…don’t be sanctimonious and turn this into an issue of Islam. It is basically an issue of sense and sensibilities once you realize there is no cause of Islam served by these so-called Qurbanis every year.
@Shoaib, i agree with your first post and yes i know who it feels to wear cheap cloth and when every one around have expensive designer cloths, that’s why still i don’t buy those expensive designer clothes because i would rather wear medium cloths and donate the rest rather than wearing expensive clothes and donate the rest so that someone else can also wear cloths. We need to think about poor when we are buying expensive clothes for ourselves and when we are eating at expensive restaurants and just when its time for qurbani