A crowd was gathering in the front yard of a house, despite the pandemic. There were a cow and a goat. A man was digging a hole. Big knives, ropes, and a plank were being laid out. They were going to perform the sacrificial ritual of Abraham: the qurban.
I remember seeing my first qurban. We had the slaughter in our front yard. I was six or seven. The goat’s desperate bleating. The hissing air and gurgling blood of opened thorax. After that I could not watch the qurban ritual.
God tested Abraham’s faith by ordering him to sacrifice his only son Ishmael. When he dutifully performed God’s instructions, God exchanged Ishmael with a sheep. God favoured them both for their obedience.
…
The sacrificial animal will guide the donor in his journey in the Mashar desert. The faithfuls will join the caravan of Muhammad on their way to paradise. The wicked and the unbelievers will be lost and scattered under the heat of scorching suns.
Sacrificial rituals are common cultural motifs. The Vikings slit open the bowels of a slave at weddings.The Aztecs took the hearts of their enemies to have their blood fuel the Sun. The God of Abraham sent his son to be crucified to redeem mankind.
“The qurban was progressive. It ended human sacrifices,” a liberal Muslim scholar argued. “The meat is distributed among the poor. The essence of qurban is the charity aspect. Therefore, modern Muslims can skip slaughtering cattles at their home or local mosque or town square—a public health risk and substandard live animal treatment.”
I am no longer religious, but I still eat meat. I am aware of the sentience of the cattle and the concentration camp-like factory farms. But the dry-age steaks; the bacon; the mutton curries; the lamb shanks; and the tonkatsu donburi, made me look away.
If I have the stomach to eat them, I should have the stomach to watch them die.
So I stayed; witnessed the qurban.
The ropes were tied to the cow’s legs. Four men tended the ropes. The cow mooed and struggled. The butcher prayed with a knife in his hand. The goat bleated, knowing it would share the same fate as the cow.
The crowd was chanting the takbir. The spectacle became a ritual. The dullness of everyday life was suspended by death. The satiation of Sapiens’ carnal bloodlust.
