By Syed Rizvi

20 Nov 2010

Once again, Muslims around the world have “sacrificed” millions of animals in a three day period during the month of Eid-ul-Adha to please God.

Sacrifice inherently means that you part with something that is very close to your heart and experience a certain degree of pain during the process.

Abraham proceeded to sacrifice his son who was very close to his heart and with whom had great attachment.

This act of Abraham can be seen as a spirit of true sacrifice.

Today, if I say that I sacrificed an old sofa for a greater cause, I will be laughed at, since the sofa doesn’t mean much to me.  However, this hypothetical act of mine is not much different from someone slitting the throat of a goat to please God and call it a sacrifice, since the person has had no attachment to the goat except a few bucks that he would soon forget.

I am just wondering if that is what God had in his mind when he asked us to follow a path in remembrance of Abraham’s devotion to God.  Today what we do on the streets of Karachi during the Eid-ul Adha is a mockery of Abraham's devotion to God.

It is beyond my comprehension that our God, whom we regard as  compassionate and merciful finds pleasure watching a helpless camel with one of his front legs tied off the ground and two of his hind legs so closely tied together that he becomes incapable of using those legs independently.   And apart from that, his jaws are tied with a rope that he cannot even brawl.  And then, a pious looking person sticks a knife into the camel's throat.  The camel bleeds for tens of minutes and suffers excruciating pain until he dies.

Here are some examples:    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oIbT6Plio8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3R6qhjplHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws8ub3wo_hM&feature=related

I read somewhere that the Prophet stated “La taqtolu  bil-la iza’a”  if you must kill,  kill without torture.

I don’t see any concerns among Muslims honoring Prophet’s words.  We Muslims are very good in cherry picking things; we choose what suits us and disregard those that hinder our ways of doing things.

 I often wonder what if God had asked us to sacrifice our children to make him happy. I doubt any commandment like that would have seen the light of the day. 

The issue of animal sacrifice is often debated among Islamic scholars, and opinions are divided.  Ironically it turned out to be a Buddhist Scholar Norm Phelps who had recently posted two of his well researched work on www.newageislam.com , and I would invite the readers to re-visit those articles.

Islam and Animal Rights by Norm Phelps: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=2230

Sacrifices in Islam by Norm Phelps

http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=3631

Other related article also appear on www.islamicconcern.com

The Sacrifice of ‘Eidal –Ahada”  by ShahidAl Mutaqqi                   

http://www.islamicconcern.com/sacrifice01.asp

A Pakistani View of Baqar Eid  by Abuzar Rayees 

http://www.islamicconcern.com/sacrifice02.asp

And YES, I do maintain that the title of my article is quite appropriate in the light of the following verse.

“It is not their flesh, nor their blood, that reaches Allah; nor yet their blood, but your devotion will reach him (Quran 2:196 ; 2:28 . 35-37)

What happens on the streets of Karachi during these three days of the festival it does not take much to notice that the so called Qurbani has transformed into a blood orgy defied by all standards of human decency.

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Syed Rizvi is a physicist by profession and is the Founder and President of Engineers and Scientists for Animal Rights. Syed lives in Silicon Valley, California.

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/debating-islam/animal-sacrifice-or-blood-orgy?/d/3706