Recently Eidul adha has passed. One of the main rituals surrounding this eid, for those who dont travel to Mecca, is to slaughter a sheep, or some other animal.
Many, many people Ive met, who have never been to the farms before, and go often have a tough time seeing the sheep being slaughtered. I myself from a young age could not agree with many of the ideas, thats its humane the way we do it, the animal doesnt suffer or get scared, blah blah.
Ive since growing up looked into eating and not eating meat. There is for me more than enough evidence to suggest that eating less meat is more healthier than eating meat quite regularly. I would think that ruling out meat completely would be ill advised. As far as I know the prophet of Islam ate meat once a week. Jurists have debated this issue. For me, its quite funny, because if he only ate meat once a week, some people interpret that as, well we can eat anytime. But what if it really meant, thats the maximum, as much as one should eat? Selective interpretation I say, the majority of muslims give up all vices, so eating is like their last one lol. Lots of 'holy' muslims just go out to eat, since thats their only entertainment.
As Ive said, its a difficult one to understand, many other religions, bhuddism, hinduism, advocate non eating of meat, yet abrahamic faiths are all ok with it. So whats really going on?
In ancient times, people would sacrifice humans to appease some god. Sun gods, weather gods, evil gods. Eventually that paved the way for animal sacrifice. Amazingly if you tell people that sacrificing animals for Allah, or those ancient gods is the same thing, its actually upseting, since to them Allah, is the real one. But essentially its the same idea.
To me the whole thing is metaphorical, and as weve evolved, we might even be at the point where we could give up the literal sacrifice, and try to understand what it really means.
According to hadiths, the animals youve sacrificed would lead you across or carry you over the sirat, a bridge as thin as a hair, with heaven and hell on either side. As a result of this story, people even dressed the sheep up before their slaugher lol.
Heaven and hell represent the state of consciousness that people get to, or can be thought of as goals. For example, if a tennis player wants to be succesful, he has to train, eat right, sleep right, develop strategies, etc. Often the line between success( heaven ) , and failure ( hell) is a very thin one. Most exceptional athletes often describe how things are decided in tiny moments, the difference between success and failure is often just split seconds. The training, the eating habits, the mental toughness and determination to succeed they have, often carries them through the tough times, across that sirat, that thin line between failure and success.
So basically the sheep is representative of whatever we need to do , or not do to succeed. The sacrifices we must make to achieve our goals.
What really made me quite happy was perhaps understanding the hadith in a metaphorical way about how we should split the sacrifical meat. According to the hadity, it should be split in three , one for your self, one for family and friends, and one for the needy.
Taken to mean any thing we give of ourselves, a personal sacrifice, God instructs us, or rather guides us that no matter how much we give to others, we should always give some to ourselves.
Many people feel spirituality or being religious is about not existing, or putting themselves last, with countless mental illnesses arising from such conclusions. So the same charity or kindness we give to others , we should always keep a bit over for ourselves.
I couldnt think of something more beautiful, especially in todays times, where most people dont feel they have the right to look after themselves.
To sum this all up, I read this poem by Gibran. Its quite beautiful.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
:)
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