More than 110,000 sheep are to be slaughtered in Eid Al-Adha this year

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, January 29 (IslamOnline.net) – As French authorities gear up for setting up slaughterhouses that Muslims can use to sacrifice animals at Eid Al-Adha, more than 20,000 Muslims in the country packed their bags for the holy journey of hajj.

The collective slaughter is an effort to stick by sanitary standards necessary to avoid epidemic outbreaks and chaos caused by the random butchering outside the houses.

More than 110,000 sheep are to be slaughtered in Eid Al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) this year. The Udhiyah (sacrifice) is an act of worship where Muslims revive the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim, Prophet Isma`eel and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon them all).

It reminds Muslims of the great act of sacrifice that Prophet Ibrahim and Isma`eel were willing to do for the sake of Almighty Allah. Allah spared the life of Prophet Isma`eel.

The Health Ministry, in coordination with the Interior Ministry, is to organize the process by setting up makeshift abattoirs in French towns and areas where Muslims are predominantly living.

“It is an attempt to avoid the spread of epidemics and chaos after Muslims slaughter their sacrificed animals in the outside of their houses,” a Health Ministry source told IslamOnline.net.

He said the process is to be supervised by Muslim imams, and that animals would be slain according to Islamic law or Shari’ah.

The Interior Ministry and Agriculture Ministry had earlier published leaflets calling for the slaughterhouses to be mainly adopted for Muslims’ sacrificial practice.

Welcomed

Many counties welcomed the idea, with one city making available a pastureland for 3300 animals to be sacrificed with large screens for families seeking to attend the sacrifice.

The organized butchery is to put an end to problems that had been facing Muslims all over earlier years, where they had to slaughter animals in secret because of the lack of slaughterhouses.

That sparked appeals, including these of the Communist Party’s spokesman, for setting up areas earmarked for the slaughter in every town and village in France.

In another act of integration with the Islamic world, the charitable commission for supporting Palestine is raising donations to be sent to Palestinians to join the ceremonial atmosphere in the Eid despite the continued Israeli occupation and almost-daily incursions.

The meat of the Udhiyah should be divided in three equal portions: one for oneself and the family, one for friends, and one for the poor and needy. If there are more poor people, then it is good to give all of it in charity to the poor and needy.

Hajj Warnings 

In the meantime, 20,000 French Muslims journeyed to Makkah for hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam as physically and financially able Muslims have to perform hajj at least once in a lifetime.

The hajj culminates with Eid Al-Adha. Muslims also have a religious duty to offer sacrifices during the pilgrimage and hundreds of thousands of animals, mostly sheep, are slaughtered each year and the meat donated to the needy.

Some pilgrims buy livestock directly and slaughter it themselves.

The French Ministry issued a warning that French pilgrims should be highly alert against potential terrorist attacks during their stay in the holy city.  

The statement cited the bombing attack against a residential compound in Riyadh in November 2003, and the recent wave of detentions of Saudi extremists believed to be plotting car bombing attacks against western targets.

Eid Al-Adha is coinciding this year with a large debate in the throes of the French government’s plans to bar hijab from state schools despite the international wave of Muslim opposition across the world.

Muslims have stressed that the dress code is obligatory under the Islamic law and not just a symbol to be easily abandoned.

French President Jacques Chirac had earlier refused to a recommendation to declare Eid Al-Adha or Yum Kippur national holidays, saying that Muslim and Jewish school children could be allowed off on any of the two days.