Eid al-Adha, Part 1: Not for the Faint of Heart (or PETA activists)

My new friend is watching me as I write this. His name is Phineas, and he is standing in a corner of our living room in a pile of his own waste.

Phineas is our sheep (qebsh in Moroccan Arabic, which is just fun to say). And in 3 days, he is going to die.

Perhaps I should explain. Eid al-Adha (or Eid al-Kebir, “The Big Holiday”) is one of the most important holidays of the Muslim world, commemorating Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Ishmael. For Muslims, Jews, and Christians the story is the same: Abraham so loved God that he was willing to sacrifice his first-born son to appease him, but at the last moment, God stayed his hand and provided Abraham with a ram to sacrifice in Ishmael’s place. In honor of this moment, each year Muslims follow his example and sacrifice a sheep to honor Allah’s benevolence. Farah, one of the CCCL’s directors and an expert in comparative religion, told us that many Moroccans take the ritual quite personally – parents see the sheep as taking the place of their child, while children thank Allah that they have been spared. She also explained that in Morocco centuries ago, the holiday melded with early Tamazight pagan beliefs which claim that the blood of a sacrificed animal can help to rid the home of evil spirits and demons. So that’s a plus. Eid al-Adha also always corresponds with the official Hajj to Mecca each year, upon which only a certain quota of Muslims can embark each year.

And so it was that on Sunday morning I awoke at the brisk, early hour of noon and walked toward the bathroom, only to double-take at the fuzzy creature staring at me from across the living / dining / television room. He’s a bit smaller than some of the other sheep I’ve seen in the shops that have sprung up around the medina in the last week, and is actually rather adorable. He doesn’t make very much noise – though he chews very loudly – and just sort of hangs around as we watch TV and eat our meals. My little cousins love running into the house to feed or play with him – all in all he’s sort of like a temporary pet. I think I’m going to miss having Phineas around after Saturday. And yes, he lives right in our living room – he’s tied up to a hook on the wall (with enough slack to lay down or walk around a bit), eats straw, and does his business right on the tiled floor (my host sister cleans up after him once a day). Virtually every family in Morocco will get one, though I imagine that basic sheep care and storage is a bit easier outside of the city.

In an effort not to make the holiday seem too barbaric, I should emphasize that the proper method of sacrifice is very exact and meant to cause the least possible amount of pain to the animal. Also, Moroccans use all of the animal after the sacrifice. Any part of the sheep that can be eaten is eaten – and I mean ANY part. Everyone eats lamb for days. The wool is used to stuff the mattresses of our couch / beds or can be woven into rugs. I’m not yet sure what happens to the rest, but I am intrigued to find out. Well, and maybe slightly nervous.

Hopefully you’re just as excited for Part 2 – coming once Eid is over!

[UPDATED! Side note for curious Bible-ophiles or BU Core Curriculum enthusiasts: After further investigation, I have discovered that the story of Abraham's sacrifice is presented differently in the Quran and the Bible. According to the Muslim holy book, Ishmael was nearly sacrificed by Abraham, while Christian and Jewish scripture both place Abraham's other son Isaac on the chopping block. This is significant because Isaac and Ishmael shared Abraham as a father, but had different mothers (Sarah, Abraham's first wife, and Hagar, Sarah's maidservant, respectively). Following a jealous maternal conflict, the two sons split and went on to father the Jewish and Arab peoples, respectively. Naturally, each of these groups wanted to promote their own ascendency by claiming that their ancestor was the son favored by both Abraham and God. So for Muslims, the sacrifice (and other events follow and recreate the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham's land) has merged with pre-existing pagan traditions in the region and evolved into the modern Hajj. Interestingly, Moroccan Jews perform their own sacrifice in honor of Abraham and Isaac, but at a different date.]