For six years, it has been a tradition for Muslims in the Research Triangle: After morning services on the first day of Eid al-Adha — the “festival of sacrifice” — scores of families leave the tweedy environs of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and head toward an obscure plot of land on a two-lane country road.
They come to visit Eddie Rowe, a hog farmer.
The children typically run around among Rowe’s loose chickens. The women prepare picnic sandwiches. And the patriarch of each family awaits his turn to slit the throat of a lamb or a goat that Rowe has sold him.
To Muslims around the world, this is an important ritual — a tribute to Allah and to the prophet Abraham, who in both the Koran and the Bible is said to have offered his son as a sacrifice to God.
To research scientist Ahmed Mamai, 40, a native Moroccan, performing the sacrifice on Rowe’s property allows him to maintain an ancient tradition that would be difficult to square with his lifestyle in suburban Raleigh. If he slaughtered an animal in his backyard, Mamai said with a smile, “My wife would sacrifice me.”
Here come those secularists, trying to take the EEEE! out of Eid al-Adha.
Where is PETA?
“Where is PETA”?
Down here in South Carolina, making life so miserable for the monks of Mepkin Abbey, that they are having to give up their egg farming in order to maintain a peaceful life.
We shall miss them, we always knew those eggs were fresh, and probably blessed.
Now PETA has been making their lives miserable, so no more eggs.
Gloria in SC
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
but you know you’re a redneck if you think it’s People Eating Tasty Animals.
I saw this reported in the Raleigh News & Observer several days ago. It does seem like an unwarranted interference; prissy city slickers uncomfortable with animals being killed. The stated purpose was public health issues. The field is not a slaughter house with regular health inspections, facilities, etc. I think in this case the state ought to lighten up. Most of us have completely lost the mental connection between the meat in the sytrofoam tray and the animal it came from. For once, I’m on the side of the local Muslims.
A HOG farmer?? Haram! Haram!
We have a farmer/rancher outside Tallahassee who makes good money during the Eid with selling lambs and goats to Muslims. I think they then go to a local butcher where they then perform the sacrifice. That way, they don’t have to worry about the ‘health issue’ business.
I spent a week at Mepkin and was fortunately to work with the monks in the eggery. The chicken barns were clean and humane. It’s true the chickens were in cages, but with 40,000 of them, what would you do?
The fact is that a society of 300 million people won’t have eggs to eat without cages.
Am I incorrect in believing that anything to do with pigs (pig farms, butcher shops, etc., creates an area that no self-respecting Muslim would be found; or is it practicing Jews only?
#9 – what I asked in #6.
Nobody yet mentioned ” . . . and to the prophet Abraham, who in both the Koran and the Bible is said to have offered his son . . .”. The son in their book is not Isaac but Ishmael. And yes, anything to do with pigs would be disgusting to a practicing Muslim.