A day of sacrifice

On Friday we celebrated our second Eid. Now for those who don't know the second Eid is significant because it marks the event in history when the prophet Ebrahim (Abraham) was tested in faith and ordered by God to sacrifice his son Ismael (Ishmael). As I understand it in the Christian and Jewish faiths alike it is believed that it was Isgaak (Isaac) that was to be sacrificed or am I mistaken? So anyway the story goes that when Ebrahim proceeded to sacrifice his beloved son, the knife would not cut and God sent a ram to take Ismael's place. So on this auspicious day, muslims all over the world sacrifice animal in the names of their children. Now for those of you who are vegetarian because you don't believe in the sacrifice of animals for food, I am sorry for this post and accept that you may not agree with this custom. However if you enjoy tucking into your juicy steak but find yourself disapproving, may I ask that you reserve judgement until you at least better understand fully what this day is about. Firstly, notice the word sacrifice as opposed to killing. This is an important distinction to make. Animals are not just randomly killed for the sake of fun or sport, they are sacrificed for a clear purpose. No part of the sacrificed animal must e wasted or incorrectly disposed of. Most people elect to distribute all the meat to the poor and destitute. The charity organisations involved usually make up food parcels. Now the part that many people struggle with is the actual observation of this sacrifice and that the child the animal is sacrificed for is encouraged to watch. This disturbs many people, especially us city folk. But I do believe that when a child, even very young children, understand the significance of the event they are not negatively affected by it, in fact I have found with Bilaal that he actually has a deeper respect for life because he is more aware of the value of life even in an animal. When you just watch the sacrifice all you see is the slaughter, but there are so many rules that need to be adhered to. now I am no expert but I am vaguely aware of the main ones. The animal must be well treated in its life state - well fed, comfortable etc. The animal must never see or smell the sacrifice of other animals as there must be no sense of the impending sacrfice so that the animal does not experience any fear. The method of sacrifice, which incidentally is also one of the determining factors for meat that is halaal or not, is that the cut must occur in one fast movement into the jugular so that death is instant and the animal experiences the least amount of pain possible. There are others but these are the main ones for me. Bilaal observed for the first time last year when he was 3 years old and he handled it really well. We read him the story before hand and he had some questions which we answered as best we could and he seemed to understand. I must say the whole day makes me very emotional because it just makes me think how grateful I need to be that I have been blessed with the ability to bear children. An then I think about how easily life can be taken away from us, even our children. And that makes me really fearful about my children's safety. ALmost everyday now on the news there's been reports of toddlers and chidlren drowning or missing or killed and you wonder what kind of world do we live in when children have become commonplace victims? And then when the Imam asks for my child's name to recite and proceed with the scarifice I pray to Allah to please protect my children from any pain and suffering and keep them safe from harm.

So I know this was a rather serious post compared to my usual lighthearted banter but I felt it was important part of my motherhood experience that I needed to intellectualise a bietjie.