Eid al-Adha, known as the Feast of Sacrifice, coincides with the final rites of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. It is a joyous date in which food is a key element: devotees buy and sacrifice animals and share two thirds of the meat with the poorest.
Many Southeast Asian nations including Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore celebrated Eid al-Adha on Thursday, while Muslims in other parts of the world such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Afghanistan and Nigeria did so on the eve. The date varies depending on the sighting of the moon in different parts of the planet.
Worshipers, standing shoulder to shoulder, joined community prayers on the streets of the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Thursday. Mosques filled with devotees for morning prayers, including the city’s Istiqlal Grand Mosque, the largest in the region.
“Thank God, we can pray on Eid al-Adha with our family and celebrate without fear of the outbreak or pandemic,” said Neisya Fabiola, a Jakarta resident. “This year’s celebration is much livelier than in previous years.”
In Indonesia, the festival is known for its lavish feasts on sacrificial meat. Large crowds fill the courtyards of the mosques to participate in the ritual killing of animals.
Eid al-Adha commemorates the Qur’anic account of Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to God. Before carrying out the sacrifice, God offered him a ram as an offering. In Christian and Jewish traditions, Abraham is asked to kill his other son, Isaac.
Last year, culls were disrupted by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia. But the government has worked to outpace the disease, a highly acute and highly contagious virus among cloven-hoofed animals that sometimes passes to humans.
Foot-and-mouth disease has slowed considerably the traditional upswing in the sale of goats, cattle and sheep in Indonesia on the occasion of the holiday.
FUENTE: Associated Press
