Ritual slaughter

In the UK, we always celebrated Eid ul Adha, commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his first-born son on God’s command, and his subsequent sacrifice of a sheep.  

The children knew all about Eid both from home and their madrassa. I would send off our money to the Islamic Relief development charity, knowing that somewhere in the world, an animal would be sacrificed as Qurbani on our family’s behalf. It would be hygienically canned before being distributed to feed people in the developing country whose box I had ticked on the form. From our point of view, it was very straightforward. And then the day itself was always fun: I would obtain permission to take the children out of school; Julian would take the day off work. After a mad dash to perform the 10am prayers at the mosque, we would blow up ‘Happy Eid’ balloons and spend the rest of the day with family and friends. 

In South Africa, it was – and is- very different. Eid prayers are performed outside, at 5.30am. It was my first Eid ul Adha: I thought I must have misheard the time. Yet for the three children this early start was an adventure: within minutes of being woken up, they appeared in the kitchen in their best clothes. Asim insisted on wearing pin-striped trousers and an elasticated tie ‘to look like Daddy’. I can’t remember when I last saw Daddy in a tie. By 7am we were back, and we were hungry. 

‘Do you want to come over to my cousin’s place after breakfast?’ a South African friend of ours had asked. We did; our family is all back in the UK and Eid is meant to be a sociable occasion. As soon as we reached the house of his cousin Riaz in the quiet suburbs, we encountered a bustle of sheep-related activity in the garden. I now understood the reason for the early prayers.  

The garden was busy. We noticed six live sheep in a curtained makeshift pen, a large hole, two farm-workers who had been brought in to get the dead sheep into an acceptable condition for the butcher, lots of buckets for the various different body parts, strong hooks attached to the washing line to dry out the animal meat, and a small truck with dry ice ready to take it all away afterwards. It all seemed very organised.

We had pre-ordered a sheep, along with six of his relatives and friends- but the chief sheep-sacrificer suddenly realized he had miscounted and so had to rush off to get another one. Bizarrely, he found one nearby. The other six sheep had all been cared for by the family for at least 48 hours, so that it would feel more of a sacrifice when was time for them to go. Safiyya took one look at all the live sheep and worked out what was going to happen: she rushed inside to play with dolls.

The sheep were brought out from the pen individually, with the curtain quickly replaced so that the others that remained in the pen could not see what was happening. Then each sheep in turn was laid down by the hole on its right side, stroked gently and given water to drink, whilst Riaz hid the knife from its view. The animal was so calm. The knife was quickly brought out and those gathered around quietly recited praises to God: death was almost instantaneous.  Julian had a go; the blood poured into the hole.  My younger children, Amaani and Asim, were fascinated. ‘Is that a swimming pool?’ asked Amaani. I managed to persuade her not to jump in. 

And then the animal was given to the farmworkers who cut and dried out the sheep wool and put all the right bits into the right buckets. Amazingly, every part of the animal was going to be used by local people – even the head. Only the last two sheep refused to lie down: they ran around and broke a couple of Riaz’s house windows in the process. Riaz felt this was not really the kind of thing he could claim on insurance, and sadly accepted this was turning out to be his most expensive Qurbani ever. Later that day, the meat was frozen; most of it would be distributed to many local and desperately poor people. I didn’t have to tick any boxes. 

In the UK, Riaz’s neighbours would have been completely horrified. But here the neighbours accept it: it is just what the Muslims do. 

That day, I could see at first-hand that Eid ul Adha is primarily about sacrifice; that the meat I eat doesn’t start out its life in neatly labelled packages; and that the ‘halal’ way of slaughtering really can be humane. I thanked God that my children had the opportunity to learn these lessons for themselves. Of course Safiyya missed the whole thing, but perhaps if I hide the dolls, then this year she might see it too. 

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