Culture Shock: Kurban Bayrami

Note to reader: If you are a vegetarian or someone who doesn’t like the idea of how animals get from the farm to your plate… you may want to think twice about reading this post.  It’s not overly gruesome, just… honest.

Today is the first day of Kurban Bayrami also known as Eid Al-Adha which translates to Festival of Sacrifice. 

It is a Muslim holiday that lasts four days and that changes dates based on the Islamic calendar.  All of the businesses are closed for today and have limited hours for the rest of the week.  We made sure to stock up on groceries at the market yesterday and I’m glad we did. 

Dad and I finished priming the rust spots today and I made the mistake of saying that I had extra paint in the can so I ended up priming the wind scoops and other spots he could find until the paint began to turn into a very tough paste.  We decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a bike ride. 

I acquired a second bike from an American guy who arrived over the weekend.  His name is Dan, he is from Seattle but works in Alaska as a charter fisherman or something during the summer and is currently sailing/backpacking around the Med with some friends.  I talked to him for maybe 15 minutes with hopes that there would be a group of people my age at the marina, but found out they were going hiking for 3 weeks in the mountains surrounding the marina.  Well I can give them credit for not wasting any time because literally 2 hours after they docked the boat and checked in with the customs office they were gone.  I had mentioned that Dad was shopping with the one bike we have and he said I could borrow his.  I didn’t think he was serious but as they were leaving, backpacks ready, he knocked on the boat and had left his bike on the dock for my use and had a bag of food he was going to dispose of but offered to us.  So for the next three weeks I will have a beach cruiser at my disposal and Dad and I will be able to explore the town together.

We picked the road that has the grocery stores on it and Dad wanted to see what was beyond where we had already gone.  He likes to pick a road a day and ride to the end.  This road took us into the equivalent of what I would call suburbia.  The neighborhoods outside of the city are lined with 2-3 story apartments and houses that are a bit more run down by American standards, but that are great farm houses by Turkish standards.  Citrus trees, chickens, and various livestock pepper the yards of the homes with a table and chairs set up for the inhabitants to sit outside and enjoy the breeze coming off the mountain.  I was caught a bit off guard when hanging from these trees or outdoor patios were goats in the process of being skinned…

Like I said, today is the first day of the Festival of Sacrifice.  The holiday is to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.  By commemorating and observing the sacrifice, there is a ritual slaughter of an animal that is approved by Sharia, such as a goat, sheep, camel, cow, etc.  Around here it seemed the animal of choice was either a goat or sheep and I did see something that resembled a small yak… or it was perhaps just a huge hairy horned goat that I have never seen before.

The day begins at the crack of dawn when the family puts on their best and heads to the Mosque where they perform the Eid prayer and then immediately go home to make the sacrifice in the name of Allah.  

This is taken from Haberturk.com – a news website.  I just thought it was interesting… it was translated from Turkish.

 Eid prayer leaders, or they visit their cities, PRAYER, millions of Muslims filled mosques.

PRIME MINISTER Sulaimaniya
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the morning prayer and the feast, which lasted three years of restoration work was completed and opened for worship today has made the Süleymaniye Mosque.

Prime Minister Erdogan, Üsküdar rectory Suleymaniye Mosque for Eid prayers came. Eid prayer here in the morning and makes Erdogan, State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, the State Minister Hayati Yazici, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu, Ahmet Salvation Deputy Mayor, police chief Hussein was accompanied by flirtatious and Fatih Mayor Mustafa Demir.

Jack never see the President of Religious Affairs, gave the Eid sermon and prayer in the kıldırdı.
Meanwhile, the Suleymaniye Mosque density occurred due to the Eid prayer. Density due to a large number of people who could not enter the mosque, the courtyard of the mosque prayers and made out of.

On the other hand, very strict security measures were taken in and out of the Süleymaniye Mosque.Şerefelerine and deployed snipers on the buildings opposite the mosque.

There are all sorts of rules for both the person doing the slaughtering and that the animal must meet in order for it to be a true sacrifice and not just an unnecessary slaughter.  The animals have to be of a certain age and be in peak health.  The person doing the slaughter must be a Muslim and make the slaughter with the intention of it being a sacrifice.  The meat from the animal is then divided into three parts.  1 is kept by the family, the second is given to friends or neighbors, and the third is donated to the poor.  There are more prayers at sunset and at some point a lot of chocolate is eaten, which we learned about when we went to the grocery store and it looks like Valentine’s Day.

We knew that the purpose of the holiday was to slaughter a goat, but didn’t know how seriously it was taken or where the goat was slaughtered until our bike ride.  I must’ve seen over a dozen goats, sheep, or what seriously looked like a yak being skinned and butchered into pieces, or alive and tied to a tree (which was generally next to a goat who had been sacrificed and you could tell the fate of the one hanging out by the tree).  We saw a small cow pass us on a truck and an entire pen of sheep and goats which reminded Dad of a Christmas tree lot.  It’s very much like that when you think about it. 

Everyone gets together and picks out a tree to trim together.  Here they choose a goat about a year in advance and essentially trim that together too.  All of the kids have off of school, businesses are closed, and people dress up and go pray before a big feast.  The only difference from home is here the feast and “tree” are more hand in hand. 

There are no visual aids for this blog because I didn’t have a camera and well… I think it’s self explanatory.  The journalist inside of me had wished that I could’ve met a family and gone through the motions with them documenting the whole thing.  But the traveler inside of me who has to look at the photos again and again was happy I had decided to go out sans camera. 

It was what I think one would consider a truly cultural experience.