Hello/Merhaba,
Last week was the very important week for Muslim countries. It was the feast week that called in Turkish as “Kurban Bayram?”, literally “sacrifice feast”. Muslims have two religion fest and this is the second one. First one is the next day of the Ramadan’s last day.
It is the second of two Muslim holidays celebrated worldwide each year, and considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim(Abraham) to sacrifice his son, as an act of obedience to God’s command. Before Abraham sacrificed his son, God provided a male goat to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this, an animal is sacrificed and divided into three parts: one third of the share is given to the poor and needy; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the remaining third is retained by the family.(Wikipedia)
You can ask why Ibrahim wanted to sacrifice his son. The story about the question is(my knowledge): Ibrahim asks a son as he has no any to the God and promise him to sacrifice his son if the God gives him a son. When the God grant him a son and the son reached his age of concious, Ibrahim takes his son to the mountain to sacrifice him for God. And when he grabbed the knife and tried to cut his throat the knife was useless. Even another story tells that he threw the knife and when it touched a stone, the stone split in half. We talking about that much sharpness!
And that moment, God sends him a big ram to sacrifice for him. The feast came to the existence thereupon. You can ask why Ibrahim promised to sacrife his son, but it is the myth and in the myths somethings are missed.
The picture is depicting the story.
This feast is also very controversial because of the vegetarians or vegans. They are protesting every year against the people who are sacrificing animals. They regard this event as a butchery.
You can consider this feast as Christmas. Even if people are not religious, they are preparing good dining tables and inviting family members or friends or neighbors. It is beyond the religion now. It is more like tradition. Already religions were shaped with impact of traditions in the past and still in process.
This feast is more about sharing. If you do not owe someone and have enough money to buy sacrifice, you should share your meat. Even sometimes people are sharing the price of the sacrifice and buying together and sharing together.
Hosçakalin(Turkish)/Bi xatirê te(Kurdish)
Tchau!
