EID-UL-AZHA GREETINGS

I wish all the readers a happy Eid-ul Azha. For Muslims all over the world, the celebration is mainly slaughtering sacrificial animals on this day after the Eid prayer.

The sacrifice of animals is symbolic. Every able Muslim should sacrifice atleast a small portion of their wealth keeping in view the symbolism in order to bridge the wide gap between the haves and havenots. As it is stated in Quran:

"It is not your meat nor their blood that reaches Allah: it is piety that reaches Him"

In Bangladesh and in some other countries these slaughtering are usually done in open spaces. For lack of sufficient slaughter houses in the cities and ample space inside own house compounds most people have no option than to choose the streets. I wish I could spend these holidays in some other place. I hate to see blood. This is nicely stated by this guy:

"There was a cow on the corner of our street.
Nice cow; white, splashes of black, cute feet.
Sunning itself in the heat.
Little did it know it would soon be meat.

Puddle on the floor.
Cow dead. It bled.
Naveed saw its head.
Street red. People fed."

In reality the sacrifice is becoming a waste and a farce of religion as some Muslims are eager for competition of indiscriminate sacrificing large animals. In Daulatpur a cow is being sold for BDT 1.5 million (US$ 22,000), which is the monthly living cost of 500 families in rural Bangladesh.

Please do read "sacrifice or waste", which I wrote a couple of years earlier.

I am ending this post with a joke about cows. Eid Mubarak.