11/28/2009

Eid al-Adha

Posted by Andrew | Labels: , ,

This weekend was the celebration of one of Islam's two main holidays, the Eid al-Adha, which completes the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca.

In celebration, many people will have a cow or sheep killed at the butcher, which is then cooked for a large meal.

Below are some photos and a video I took of the slaughter of a bull in Agouza, Cairo. There is a lot of blood.



2 comments:

dyanna said...

Very interesting ! I like it.
Have a nice day.

5:11 PM  
Bruce Kratky said...

Andrew, an amazing report. Thank you so much. That you were able to be there at that time, allowed to video, then share that experience with me is wonderful.

I had a hamburger yesterday. I've eaten many over the years. I have contributed to the slaughter of thousands of animals but have never been there at the time of the killing. There is a connection that is lost to me/us because of our industrialized way of handling this issue. There is a sense that no one, or nothing, sacrificed for my well being. I am acutely aware of this. Prayer before a meal is part and parcel of my process of connecting to the sacrifice, the blessing bestowed upon me by the death of an animal. We literally live physically by the shedding of blood for our nourishment. I live, as Scripture states, spiritually by the shedding of Christ's blood on the cross. One does not have to be a literary critic to see the beauty and significance of this image.

Certainly there are issues with having such an agrarian act performed so randomly in an urban setting. There is potential for all sorts of sanitation troubles. That it was done on the street, that there were no sanctions against it, gives me a glimpse into the mind set and culture of the people there in Cairo. They are connected to death in a way that we Americans are "no longer."

In defense of many hunters; they sense this at the time of the killing of the game. Certainly, there are those who are philosophic numb skulls and drink themselves blind before and after... just another reason for a party. Most hunters are not this way. They are aware of the beauty of the game, its place in the ecosystem, and the consequences of pulling the trigger. I have found that most of the hunters I have spoken with actually hunt because they feel duty bound to reconnect to sacrifice. They see hunting, most importantly, as a spiritual awakening.

Thank you again, Andrew

9:50 PM  

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