Moderate Muslims Sacrifice Animals for Eid Celebrations

Manchester police have allowed the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha, which this year falls on 26 October, to go ahead (via Christian Defence League).

What we are not told, though, is whether the "celebrations" will involve animal sacrifices.

Eid al-Adha, which in Arabic means "feast of sacrifice", is celebrated by Muslims worldwide in honour of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael in obedience to God, before God stopped him and provided him with a sheep to sacrifice instead of his son (funny how this reminds me of the way animals are used in biomedical experiments to make them suffer and die instead of humans).

Animal sacrifices are part of the ritual "festivities". The animals traditionally killed are cows, camels, goats and sheep depending on the region. In the Indian subcontinent, the festival is called "Bakr-Id" because of the tradition of sacrificing goats ("bakri").

In the post "Bakra Eid: The cost of sacrifice", that is only concerned about the economic cost anyway, Travel Wire Asia estimates that 7.5 million animals are sacrificed every year in Pakistan alone on Eid.

Last year, a County Commissioner in Florida tried to stop local Muslims from killing animals for Eid al-Adha on a field by getting the land owner to withdraw permission.

The voice of "moderate Muslims" in America, the Hamas-related Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who had organized the ceremony, called her actions "disturbing".

This was the South Florida branch of a national organization which represents mainstream Muslims in the USA: they organized the sacrifices, they would slit the throat of sacrificial lambs.

Remember this next time you hear about "moderate Muslims". These are the moderate Muslims. Those who participate in this sort of bloodshed and complain if stopped are mainstream, ordinary, "moderate" Muslims.