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Champion offers a slaughtered and frayed sheep weighing some 20kg at only 205 euros. |
PARIS – The French government has thrown its weight behind the ready Udhiyah and encouraged hypermarkets to sell it for Muslims during `Eid Al-Adha amid skepticism that Shari`ah rules have been observed in slaughtering the "canned sheep."
"We are checking to whom the ready Udhiyah is appealing; namely, the old or young generations," Omar Al-Taif, member of the Executive Bureau of the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) told IslamOnline.net Thursday, December 20.
Al-Taif, however, said it is too early to judge the ready Udhiyah experience.
The government agreed this year with large stores to set up special section for a number of mosques to sell Udhiyah for French Muslims estimated at some six million.
Paris-based Champion offers a slaughtered and frayed sheep weighing some 20kg at only 205 euros. The Udhiyah is stamped with the seal of the halal watchdog FC.
Carrefour, the French hypermarket chain, has been linked with the Paris Mosque this `Eid.
It offered for the first time last year French Muslims slaughtered and frayed Udhiyah during the four-day `Eid Al-Adha but without state coordination.
But Al-Taif has some reservations about the "canned" Udhiyah in supermarkets.
"Because it steals the `Eid jovial mood," he said. "The `Eid aura of happiness when families meet each other to slaughter their Udhiyah might be extinct within a decade or two decades maximum."
Random Slaughtering
The Muslim activist said the ready Udhiyah is part of a state drive to end the random slaughtering phenomenon.
"The state is creating more slaughterhouses to end random slaughtering," he said.
French Muslims usually slaughter between tens of thousands of sheep every year during `Eid Al-Adha outside registered slaughterhouses.
They complain that the practice has proved costly due to the shortage of such state slaughterhouses in predominantly Muslim areas, leaving them with no option but to slaughter their sheep in secret because a 1980 law prohibits the practice outside he registered slaughterhouses.
Daw Meskine, the imam of the Clichy-Sous-Bois mosque and the secretary general of the French Council of Imams, said the state slaughterhouses do not usually observe the Udhiyah rules in Shari`ah.
"They, for instance, often slaughter sacrificial animals before the `Eid prayer on the contrary to Shari`ah rules," he said.
"This makes Udhiyah unlawful," he added.
"Muslims should be present at slaughterhouses to make sure that butchers apply the Udhiyah rules."
A financially-able Muslim sacrifices a single sheep or goat or shares six others in sacrificing a camel or cow as an act of worship during `Eid Al-Adha.
The ritual reminds Muslims of the great act of sacrifice Prophet Ibrahim and his son Isma`eel were willing to make for the sake of God.
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