Culture & Travel

WARNING: The following article contains graphic images involving blood and ceremonial animal sacrifice.

Eid al-Adha, or Kurban Bayramı in Turkish, is the celebration of the sacrifice, which pays tribute to Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his wife and son for God.

As the Koranic story goes, Abraham was ordered by God to bring his son Ishmael and his wife, Hagar, to the mountains in the valley of Mecca and leave them to die. Years later, God rewarded Abraham's obedience by sending his family back to Canaan unscathed, and then ordered Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead.

The celebration is observed by believers across the Muslim world, and involves sacrificing sheep, donating to charity, and spending time with family and friends.

During Eid in September 2015, I followed a Turkish family, the Özgöbeks, to their farm in the outskirts of the small city of Uşak to learn how this celebration is observed by the Muslims of Turkey.

The day before the celebrations, the Özgöbeks traveled to an an animal bazaar in Uşak to purchase sheep for the sacrifice.

The bazaar was overwhelming at first: the air smelled of animal feces and cigarette smoke, the poor farmers chanted slogans and prices to potential customers, and occasionally, a fence would break and a stampede of liberated sheep would race down the hill, closely followed by their farmer and his assistants.

Like most business in Turkey, the Özgöbeks dealt with people they knew personally. It's a facet of Turkish culture - most business-related decisions are made with friends or family after countless glasses of tea, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and lengthy discussions about children, politics and football.

The Özgöbeks met with a trusted business partner and family friend - a farmer from Uşak - and observed the sheep he had raised for Eid al-Adha.

When the sheep are purchased by a family they are spray-painted with blue paint to mark which sheep have been sold to which family. The sheep the Özgöbeks will buy will be marked with a blue "Ö."

The farmer was firm on his price for each sheep - 300 Turkish Lira (roughly $120 CAD before the decline of the dollar in November 2015).

The Özgöbeks purchased six sheep - one for each adult male member of the family - totaling 1800 Lira (roughly $800 CAD in September 2015). After agreeing on a time for delivery the following day, the Özgöbeks paid the farmer and went home to enjoy baklava and tea in anticipation of the big day ahead.

On the morning of Eid, the men of the Özgöbek clan attended the mosque for the morning's blessings and wished other men in the community a fruitful holiday. When they returned, their wives had prepared a hearty breakfast of simit, bread, vegetables, cheese and jams.

After enjoying breakfast, the sheep were delivered to the house and dragged to an empty shed for storage.

After the sheep were delivered, the men prepared a sacrifice ground. This involved lighting a fire, digging a hole for blood to drain into, and reciting an Arabic prayer to bless the spot.

When everything was ready, the men sent the women and children inside the house and brought out the first sheep.

As per ritual, the sheep's throat was slit and the men waited until it bled out. This type of sacrifice is known as Dhabihah in Arabic.

Under usual circumstances, a non-Muslim would not be permitted to observe this - especially one with a camera. But the Özgöbeks were very accommodating to my curiosity and I am grateful they allowed me to observe one of the sacrifices.

It is a ritual of Eid for the youth of the family to breathe into the sheep's lungs. If they can't fill the lungs with their breath, the adults of the family assume they have smoked cigarettes and punish them accordingly.

Although extremely unsanitary, I decided to join in. I was unable to fill the sheep's lungs with my breath, but I was happy the Özgöbeks were able to get a kick out of my participation.

The Özgöbeks sacrificed the rest of the sheep and spent the rest of the afternoon dissecting the meat for the evenings feast. Eid calls for one-third of the meat to be kept for your family, one-third to be given to friends, and one-third to be donated to charity, along with the wool, horns, and other useful body parts.

The meat was then cooked over an open flame and paired with a soup made from the sheep's stomach for dinner. It tasted incredible.

The following morning, the Özgöbeks enjoyed pastries, vegetables, and more stomach soup and meat for breakfast, and then participated in the final observation of Eid - kissing the hands of their elders.

Turkish culture, when meeting an elder, it is custom to kiss their hand and press it against your forehead as a sign of respect. The elders sit in a semi-circle and the children go around kissing their hands, after which the elders give them money.

This money is similar to the Christmas gifts under our trees every December.

With all the festivities completed, the Özgöbeks spent the remainder of the holiday enjoying each other's company, eating meat and stomach soup, and visiting family and friends in Uşak.

In summary, Eid al-Adha, although it can be construed as barbaric and cruel, is a pillar of Islamic faith and Muslim culture. It is a time when families gather, people donate to charity, friends share stories and laughs, and Muslims participate in their religion as set out by the Qur'an. It is a time of happiness and excitement in the Muslim world, it provides food and clothes to the poor and a livelihood to farmers, and an opportunity for foreigners, like me, to grow closer to the Islamic faith and its adherents.