Today is the Muslim festival ‘Eidul Adha’!

Today people of the Muslim faith celebrate the festival ‘Edul Adha’!

The following is from Qaiyum Ahmed, Trainee Accountant in Ipswich who tells us more about the festival and the meaning behind it…

“Eidul Adha is the latter of the two Eids that Muslims celebrate. The first Eid being at the end of Ramadan where Muslims fast the entire month (yes not even water) and celebrate the end of the month with a big feast with friends and family.

The second Eid commemorates the story of the Prophet Abraham where he had a vision that God instructed him to sacrifice his son Ismail and was a test from God of Abraham’s unwavering faith and devotion to God’s decree whatever it may be. Of course, this would have been extremely difficult for anyone and unthinkable but even his son Ismail who was a young boy at the time turned to his father and said, ‘do what you have been commanded, you will soon find me from among those who are patient’. When Abraham had the conviction to do so, God instructed him to sacrifice a ram instead.

Eid comes during the month of ‘Hajj’ where millions of Muslims perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and a lot of the rites performed there are those of Abraham and his family when he was alive.

The pilgrims as well as Muslims also sacrifice a sheep, cow or camel from which the meat is cooked and distributed to feed mainly the destitute in society.

The day starts with Eid prayer at the mosque where all the Muslims in the locality gather to pray and ends usually with a lot of hugs and embracing between everyone (counted 112 last time). Most people usually like to visit the Cemetery to visit and pray for their loved ones who have passed and after that usually there’ll be the rounds of seeing family and friends and being fed probably 10 times that day.

Later on, we’ll usually go out to do something as a family and have a meal at a restaurant to end the day”.

Thank you for sharing this with us Qaiyum!