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Holiday ritual put on hold
Karen Tam / For The Times
PRINCETON, N.C. -- For six years, it has been a tradition for the Muslims of 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 North Carolina hog farmer.
The children typically run around among Rowe's loose chickens. The women prepare picnic sandwiches. And the patriarch of each family waits for 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 Quran and the Bible is said to have offered his son as a sacrifice to God.
To research scientist Ahmed Mamai, 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 suburban lifestyle in Raleigh.
If he slaughtered an animal in his backyard, said Mamai, 40, with a smile, "my wife would sacrifice me."
But this year, things are not going as planned on Rowe's farm.
Last week, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture obtained a restraining order alleging that Rowe was operating an unsanitary and illegal slaughter facility.
And so on Wednesday, the first day of the three-day festival, confusion reigned in place of celebration. Throughout the day, minivans and sedans pulled into Rowe's driveway. About 250 animals had been ordered; most of the families had pre-paid. Now some of them were canceling, and Rowe -- in his red baseball cap and deer hunting jacket -- was returning up to $160 for each animal, counting out crisp bills into waiting hands.
Other families took their animal, saying they had plans to kill it somewhere else. The state Agriculture Department has determined that such slaughter falls into a legal gray area, and officials have said they will not prosecute anyone who does so.
That knowledge was of little help to Muhammad Mannan, a 56-year-old from Bangladesh who holds a doctorate in statistics and lives in the suburban city of Apex, just west of Raleigh.
"But Eddie, where can we go?" Mannan asked the hog farmer Wednesday afternoon.
"Well," Rowe said, his eyes drooping sympathetically, "Y'all can take 'em home and kill 'em. That's what we were told."
"I do have a big backyard," Mannan said, as if thinking aloud.
And so the doctors and scientists -- most lured to the region by research companies, hospitals and major universities -- chatted on cell phones in Arabic and Bengali and Uzbek, trying to find someplace where they could go to kill their lamb.
Families with a plan backed their cars into Rowe's big barn. There, a dusty farmhand named Dwayne would bind an animal by its ankles, then dump the beast into a trunk like some woolly victim in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Many of the Muslims stressed that they felt no ill will toward the Agriculture Department --the law was the law; they just wanted a place to practice the ritual. Mannan suggested they might lobby for a way to do it legally next year.
"I think we will have to go to the governor," he said politely.
But Rowe, 34, was angry. The Carolina native said the lost revenue is not the issue -- he hardly makes anything off Eid al-Adha. More important, he said, he has come to count his Muslim customers as friends. He knows many of the families by name. He has been invited into some of their homes for dinner. And though raised in a Pentecostal church, he has come to respect their convictions.
"When I first did this, some people around here thought I'd turned Muslim," he said. "But hey, it's 2007. We can be friends with anybody."
In previous years, Rowe and his co-workers allowed the men to kill the animals in the barn. The farmhands then buried the remains in the woods.
Rowe said the government gave him no warning when it sought the restraining order. But agriculture officials said they have been concerned about the sacrifices for some time. Officials cited Rowe and his father for unsanitary slaughters on the farm in 2004, and again in 2005, issuing a $10,000 fine that Rowe has yet to pay.
Steve Wells, director of the meat and poultry inspection division, said Rowe has a history of slaughtering animals illegally outside of the Muslim holiday.
The department has drawn up designs for a code-compliant slaughterhouse, but Rowe said it would cost him $750,000 to build. He noted that he usually makes about $20 profit off each a lamb or goat sold during the festival.
In the late afternoon, a Moroccan businessman named Said Abdssamad pulled up with his family. He was coming to get his money back.
"Maybe we're going to celebrate at Burger King this year," he said, "or order Chinese."
But after a flurry of cell phone calls -- apparently a friend of a friend knew a guy with some land -- Abdssamad and Rowe haggled over the price of a lamb.
Some cash was exchanged. Abdssamad, his family, and their sacrifice drove off into the countryside.
Karen Tam / For The Times
PRINCETON, N.C. -- For six years, it has been a tradition for the Muslims of 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 North Carolina hog farmer.
The children typically run around among Rowe's loose chickens. The women prepare picnic sandwiches. And the patriarch of each family waits for 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 Quran and the Bible is said to have offered his son as a sacrifice to God.
To research scientist Ahmed Mamai, 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 suburban lifestyle in Raleigh.
If he slaughtered an animal in his backyard, said Mamai, 40, with a smile, "my wife would sacrifice me."
But this year, things are not going as planned on Rowe's farm.
Last week, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture obtained a restraining order alleging that Rowe was operating an unsanitary and illegal slaughter facility.
And so on Wednesday, the first day of the three-day festival, confusion reigned in place of celebration. Throughout the day, minivans and sedans pulled into Rowe's driveway. About 250 animals had been ordered; most of the families had pre-paid. Now some of them were canceling, and Rowe -- in his red baseball cap and deer hunting jacket -- was returning up to $160 for each animal, counting out crisp bills into waiting hands.
Other families took their animal, saying they had plans to kill it somewhere else. The state Agriculture Department has determined that such slaughter falls into a legal gray area, and officials have said they will not prosecute anyone who does so.
That knowledge was of little help to Muhammad Mannan, a 56-year-old from Bangladesh who holds a doctorate in statistics and lives in the suburban city of Apex, just west of Raleigh.
"But Eddie, where can we go?" Mannan asked the hog farmer Wednesday afternoon.
"Well," Rowe said, his eyes drooping sympathetically, "Y'all can take 'em home and kill 'em. That's what we were told."
"I do have a big backyard," Mannan said, as if thinking aloud.
And so the doctors and scientists -- most lured to the region by research companies, hospitals and major universities -- chatted on cell phones in Arabic and Bengali and Uzbek, trying to find someplace where they could go to kill their lamb.
Families with a plan backed their cars into Rowe's big barn. There, a dusty farmhand named Dwayne would bind an animal by its ankles, then dump the beast into a trunk like some woolly victim in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Many of the Muslims stressed that they felt no ill will toward the Agriculture Department --the law was the law; they just wanted a place to practice the ritual. Mannan suggested they might lobby for a way to do it legally next year.
"I think we will have to go to the governor," he said politely.
But Rowe, 34, was angry. The Carolina native said the lost revenue is not the issue -- he hardly makes anything off Eid al-Adha. More important, he said, he has come to count his Muslim customers as friends. He knows many of the families by name. He has been invited into some of their homes for dinner. And though raised in a Pentecostal church, he has come to respect their convictions.
"When I first did this, some people around here thought I'd turned Muslim," he said. "But hey, it's 2007. We can be friends with anybody."
In previous years, Rowe and his co-workers allowed the men to kill the animals in the barn. The farmhands then buried the remains in the woods.
Rowe said the government gave him no warning when it sought the restraining order. But agriculture officials said they have been concerned about the sacrifices for some time. Officials cited Rowe and his father for unsanitary slaughters on the farm in 2004, and again in 2005, issuing a $10,000 fine that Rowe has yet to pay.
Steve Wells, director of the meat and poultry inspection division, said Rowe has a history of slaughtering animals illegally outside of the Muslim holiday.
The department has drawn up designs for a code-compliant slaughterhouse, but Rowe said it would cost him $750,000 to build. He noted that he usually makes about $20 profit off each a lamb or goat sold during the festival.
In the late afternoon, a Moroccan businessman named Said Abdssamad pulled up with his family. He was coming to get his money back.
"Maybe we're going to celebrate at Burger King this year," he said, "or order Chinese."
But after a flurry of cell phone calls -- apparently a friend of a friend knew a guy with some land -- Abdssamad and Rowe haggled over the price of a lamb.
Some cash was exchanged. Abdssamad, his family, and their sacrifice drove off into the countryside.
Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing to perform Eid prayer (Salatu'l-`id) in any mosque. Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually sheep, but also camels, cows, and goats) as a symbol of Ibrahim's (Abraham's) sacrifice. The sacrificed animals, called "udhiya Arabic: ̅ꒃ" also known as "qurbani", have to meet certain age and quality standards or else the animal is considered an unacceptable sacrifice. Generally, these must be at least a year old. At the time of sacrifice, Allah's name is recited along with the offering statement and a supplication as Muhammad said. According to the Quran a large portion of the meat has to be given towards the poor and hungry people so they can all join in the feast which is held on Eid-ul-Adha. The remainder is cooked for the family celebration meal in which relatives and friends are invited to share. The regular charitable practices of the Muslim community are demonstrated during Eid ul-Adha by the concerted effort to see that no impoverished Muslim is left without sacrificial food during these days. Eid ul-Adha is a concrete affirmation of what the Muslim community ethic means in practice. People in these days are expected to visit their relations, starting with their parents, then their families and friends. (Arabic audio with English meaning).
In the name of God ÈÓã Çááå
And God is the greatest æÇááå ÃßÈÑ
O God, indeed this is from you and for you Çááåã Åä åÐÇ ãäß æáß
O God accept from me Çááåã ÊÞÈá ãäí
Distributing meat among people is considered an essential part of the festival during this period, as well as chanting Takbir out loud before the Eid prayer on the first day and after prayers through out the four days of Eid.
In the name of God ÈÓã Çááå
And God is the greatest æÇááå ÃßÈÑ
O God, indeed this is from you and for you Çááåã Åä åÐÇ ãäß æáß
O God accept from me Çááåã ÊÞÈá ãäí
Distributing meat among people is considered an essential part of the festival during this period, as well as chanting Takbir out loud before the Eid prayer on the first day and after prayers through out the four days of Eid.
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