ISTANBUL, March 15 (AFP) - The question is whether to cut their throats or not. Maybe find a tidier way of disposing them. And there are a million awaiting slaughter.
It's causing heated debate in Turkey, anxious to improve its image internationally as it applies to join the European Union.
The victims are mainly sheep, although sometimes a calf or even a camel may fall to the knife.
Eid el-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, an important date in the Muslim calendar, falls on Thursday. And Turkey is 99 percent Muslim.
Critics call the rite “bloody and barbarous,” while traditionalists remind you it dates back more than 1,400 years. The public is divided over whether to go for cleaner, tidier and less violent ways of ending the animals' lives.
Eid el-Adha celebrates the gesture of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) who was on the point of sacrificing his son Ismail for the love of God, but was spared and given a sheep to sacrifice instead.
The tradition has implications for modern Turkish politics. Turkey, only recently accepted by the EU as an official candidate for membership, fears that European eyes which may not look with approval on such practices.
With the approach of the feast this year, like the knives the debate has sharpened between those keen on respect for tradition and those in favor of more sanitized methods.
"Do we cut off the hands of thieves?" asked Ilhan Selcuk, a writer with the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. "We have to find a civilized alternative to cutting sheep's throats."
Leading the reformers is Professor Yasar Nuri Ozturk, Dean of the Faculty of Theology of Istanbul. He denounces the spectacle of what he calls torture perpetrated on animals in public places, pointing out that ritual sacrifice is not an obligation ordained in the Qur’an.
Another theologian, Professor Zekeriya Beyaz, believes the offer of meat to the poor on this festive occasion could be replaced by that of alms.
But Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz of the state Office of Religious Affairs – a more conservative institution – replies: "Some people are trying to distort and even abolish the act of sacrifice altogether."
The Office of Religious Affairs has avoided taking sides, although noting that an animal must be alive at the moment it has its throat cut, and that the blade must be properly sharpened to prevent unnecessary suffering.
Yilmaz conceded on television that it would not be against Islamic law to give sacrificial animals an electric shock to stun them if they were then put to the knife within two minutes.
In the meantime, and perhaps until Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, traditional methods are likely to prevail, albeit under the surveillance of police and veterinary inspectors to ensure minimal hygiene norms.
However, fearing change, the Islamic-dominated city authorities of Istanbul are offering classes of instruction in classic sacrificial slaughter, saying use of reformed methods would not appeal to Turkish taste because they would cause a deterioration in the quality of the meat.
Huseyin Hatemi, professor of law at Istanbul University and specialist in Islamic law, does not agree. He favors knocking out the beasts with chloroform before applying the knife, and even playing soothing music to soften the effect of violence.
Mehmet Sevket Eygi, an Islamic intellectual, retorts: "He would, wouldn't he? He's a vegetarian!"
