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.
@Animal Lover: My questions to Afsandyar, Ray and MJ have not been answered. The moment their flawed theories are exposed they run away.
Mohammad Yusha said:
Some of the comments have attacked Islam for the animal sacrifice on Eid al-Adha.
However, no one has said anything about Christianity for the killing of turkeys. Please
let me know why.
Simple, because this discussion is specific to Eid Sacrifice and not Thanks Giving (FYI,
topic reads as “Celebrate the Spirit of Sacrifice,Spare the Animals“), hence
christians or the Americans killing turkeys is not dealt with in detail. As already
mentioned, no American claims that he is “sacrificing” a turkey. So it does not
come under the ambit of this topic.
It is in fact, people like Adnan, who have little meaningful to add to the discussion, act
as troll by posting off-topic inflammatory remarks. For example, I am a pure 100%
vegetarian person, and this fellow imagines that I might be eating a turkey. How off-topic
and baseless comments this man is making in this otherwise meaningful discussion. I had
asked 2-3 times, and he could have provided us with some citation (other than verse 22:34
and 22:36 as these are already discussed here and do not help them) which authorize
muslims to kill(or ‘sacrifice’ as they call it) animals in masses, year by year on a
fixed day.
The readers here are not dumb or blind. They look for reasoning and logic, not funny or
silly comments from (insane) people like Adnan.
Your apprehensions that Islam is under attack, are unfounded. Why do you, and some others
here, feel that islam is so fragile that mere discussion of a tradition will harm it.
On the contrary, it will clean the aura by hitting at unfounded beliefs, myths,
superstitions, and bad traditions. Cursing the West, or the Christianity, or Hinduism for
that matter, is not going to help us. Most of the readers will agree to this.
It looks weird, abominable, ugly and disgusting to shed the blood of an innocent animal
year by year, and still claim that oh, that was our duty according to Islam. How is this
ugly tradition helping islam should be explained anyways,rather than what christians are
doing.
> The issue of eating meat is different from the brutality that this so-called ‘sacrifice’ has become.
@Afsandyar: Brutality? I’m assuming that animals in slaughter houses in western countries are killed in a very nice manner. I’m sure you know that they are hit with a hammer between their eyes to stun them, and often the process of skinning them begins even before they are dead.
Adnan, maybe you should read the comment again. Slowly. With a dictionary by your side. You obviously did not understand it.
By the way, do please tell us all what the “religious roots” of Thanksgiving are. Please do.
Asfand: Thanks for admitting that it’s all about religion and has nothing to do with Animal Love or something else. So if US celebrates thanksGiving, it’s OK because that’s not Islamic, right? :-)
@Animal Lover: As expected, you continue the tradition of running away and you re leaving behind traces of your ignorance and stupidity. Go away and come back next year with more quality ignorance.