Friday, May 08, 2009

Eid in Cairo

It was Eid-al Adha, and blood was good luck.  This is the holiday to remember Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son.  Just as Ibrahim was about to send the knife down, he heard a voice from heaven telling him to stop.


This is like a modern day Ibrahim, but without the voice.  He has been sacrificing sheep all day, and Cairo’s streets are running with blood.  If you think he is cruel, you must remember that this is his job.  He is a poor man on a rich street, and people have been bringing him sheep all day, and asking him to do the killing.  The look in his eye, I think, reveals that all of this killing is not his.

In Islam, there is a specific way of killing an animal.  First, you must separate the animal from its friends, so that no one has to see the violence.  Next, you must give the animal a bit of water and a bit of food.  Then you blindfold the animal.  You say a prayer to thank God for the animal, to say “Do not be afraid, because the same force that is taking your life now will one day take my life as well, and that is just the way.”

It is unclear which of these provisions are followed on Eid. Certainly not all of them, and certainly not all the time.


Mr. Khalil Gibran wrote how it is that people must kill animals.  He said:

  Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
  But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it be an act of worship.
  And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of the forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.
  And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
  “Your seeds shall live in my body,
  And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
  And your fragrance shall be my breath,
  And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”