Happy Eid al Adha with Good Hygiene and Humane Treatment of Animals

Nearly two million Muslims from all over the world gathered in the plains of Arafat in Saudi Arabia today as part of the annual ritual of Hajj this year. Tomorrow, they will celebrate Eid al Azha, a commemoration of Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his beloved son Ismael to please Allah. The Hajj pilgrims will sacrifice animals in Mecca, as will hundreds of millions of their fellow Muslims across the world.

Eid al Adha is arguably the most important Islamic festival. Clearly, the followers of Prophet Muhammad  (SAW) are motivated by their desire to  carry out the commandments of Allah. However, it seems that there  are at least two important Islamic injunctions that are often ignored by the faithful as discussed below:

1. Humane Treatment of Animals:

The way the sacrificial animals are transported and slaughtered during Eid al Azha violates the basic Islamic requirement of humane treatment. They are crammed into small spaces and subjected to overcrowded conditions aboard ships, trucks and other vehicles for transportation. Butchers are often unqualified. The knives used are not sharp enough to reduce pain and suffering. Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, has written a scholarly opinion on this issue. Here's an excerpt from it:

"..the Prophet (PBUH) did not simply command us to respect the ritual and recite “Bismillah, Allahu Akbar!” ([I begin with] In the name of God, God is the greatest!) with which animals could be killed for food. He required animals to be treated in the best possible way and spared needless suffering. As a man had immobilised his beast and was sharpening his knife in front of it, the Prophet [PBUH] intervened to say: “Do you want to make it die twice? Why didn’t you sharpen your knife [away from the animal’s view] before immobilising it?”. Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] had asked everyone to do their best to master their range of skills: For a man whose task was to slaughter animals, this clearly consisted of respecting the lives of the animals, their food, their dignity as living beings and sacrificing them only for his needs, while sparing them unnecessary suffering. The recitation accompanying the sacrifice was only to be understood as the ultimate one that, in effect, attested that the animal had been treated in the light of Islamic teachings during its lifetime. This recitation was certainly not sufficient to prove that those teachings were respected: An animal slaughtered correctly according to Islamic ritual, but ill-treated during its lifetime, therefore remained, in the light of the Islamic principles transmitted by the Messenger, an anomaly and a betrayal of the message. The Prophet [PBUH] had warned: “He who kills a sparrow or any bigger animal without right will have to account for it to God on Judgement Day.” The Prophet [PBUH] thus taught that the animal’s right to be respected, to be spared suffering and given the food it needed, to be well treated was not negotiable. It was part of human beings’ duties and was to be understood as one of the conditions of spiritual elevation."

2. Health and Hygiene:

Sahih Muslim quotes Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as saying: “Cleanliness is half the faith (Emaan).”

The implications of this Hadith are often forgotten during the festival of Eid al Azha when blood and guts of the sacrificed animals are scattered everywhere and sometimes rot for days before being collected by sanitation workers. Such neglect exposes the public to significant risks of the spread various diseases.

To address this public health and safety issue, governments in Muslim nations should  consider regulating  animal sacrifice and restricting slaughter to designated areas during Eid al Azha.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) offers a good model  for at least for the major cities in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

Summary:

Muslims, including Islamic scholars, often focus on the technical minutiae while ignoring the larger message of Islam. Professor Ramadan summarizes this problem well in his article for Gulf News as follows: "Ritual slaughter is a simple, day-to-day example, which perfectly reveals the contradictions within contemporary spiritual teachings. It emblematises the whole problem: Obsession with form regardless of substance, confusing means and ends, adoption of reform that is not suitable for transformation and over determining norms while neglecting meaning: It is at the heart of all contradictions."  It's time for the Islamic world to recognize such contradictions and correct them.


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