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.
@ Naan Haleem:
Turning your homes and streets into ugly slaughter-houses just for the reason mentioned by you can never be something to be proud of.
Do you mean to say all that a poor wants, is that you become a ‘meat-provider’ (and for that you act as a cruel butcher, uski balaa se !). He must get his share of meat. Strange!! Only a plate of meat every year alleviates his poverty and sorrows. That’s great news!!
This is the only day in the year we must be concerned for the poor, their plight and misery. Again great thing.Indeed!! We are sacrificers after all. Wonderful!!
A sacrifice to Allah, and an act of butchery can never be the same .
The over-zealous sacrificers create abnormal demands for poor animals and disturb the economics of meat industry. No wonder, meat is out of reach of poor. But then it does enable rich to be concerned of poor ;)
And yes, then it should be called “eid of butchery” rather than of sacrifice.
I dont know about the proponents of this idea of “spare the animal” whether they or their families ever sacrificed an animal and distributed the meat in really poor people.
Its no bragging about my family at all but every year when people come to our home (and of our relatives) before Eid-ul-Adha to book their share of meat, they always say one thing: “Hamain poorey saal mein sirf isi aik moqay pe gosht naeeb hota hai”
Can the proponents and supporters of this post provide any alternate for the aforementioned dilemma?
Great idea!
Let’s ruin the pay day of the good folks who raised the goats for the whole year.
Flooding them with water was not enough.
Yes, true, those good folks who are ostentatious, spoil it for all. Agreed. There is no need to sacrifice more than one.
But as for the charity and saving money, well, if we ground the motorcades and the associated cost of the protocol for only one month, we will save more than the all the 2nd and the 3rd goats these people are offering for the sake of pretense.
But if we really want to save (and spend it on nation building) some money for the nation, let us tell our thieves to take a break for just one day!
Yep, just one day.
One day of break from our very own thieves will more than offset all the money spend on these animals.
And we will still keep a lot of good folks gainfully employed.
One more Bakra Eid is upon us (more upon the animals, actually!) and thus one more season of open blood-letting is to be witnessed.
As a bunch of us said during last year’s season of blood-letting: There is no spirit of sacrifice on the streets of Pakistan during Eid. It is all show–and a gruesome show which scars young minds.
Spare the animals. Use that money to support charities. And if one is really in the spirit of sacrifice in a ritual way then at least do it in designated areas like (supposedly) they do in Saudi Arabia.
People so in love with charity never seem to suggest giving up going to movie theatres and other entertainment. The weekly business of movie theatres is easily in lacs. Also, the author is not a vegetarian. I’m tempted to call him a hypocrite but I’ll avoid it, as it would be an insult to hypocrites.