Last year, the first ever official report on multidimensional poverty in Pakistan was released. It was compiled with technical support from the UNDP and the University of Oxford.
According to this report, nearly 39 percent of Pakistanis live in ‘multidimensional poverty,’ which is a term that defines poverty by examining more than just income and wealth. It reflects the deprivations a people experience with respect to health, education and standard of living, pointing out more effectively the areas in which help is required by means of government funding and private donations.
Every year, the Muslim world spends millions of dollars in animal sacrifice on Eid. More than a million animals are sacrificed in Saudi Arabia alone after Haj. Prescribed portions are consumed by the family performing the sacrifice, distributed amongst neighbours to promote communal goodwill, and donated as charity to the poor.
It was difficult to obtain figures regarding the number of people who own a fridge in Pakistan, but eventually a figure was available in an interesting blog by a Mr. Riaz Haq. According to this it seems that just 47% of people in this country have access to a fridge. This matches fairly closely the figures mentioned with regards to poverty. It means that very, very few of the poor in Pakistan possess a means of refrigerating their food. Therefore the donation of meat in this country can be translated to feeding a family once. That’s it. Any more will not keep.
Is it possible for this massive outpouring of charity to be restructured so that the effects are comparatively long term, more effective, more durable?
The four pillars of Islam include fasting, prayer, zakat and Haj, the last only if it is financially possible. Unlike these, the sacrifice of an animal at Eid ul Adha is mandatory only as the last component of Haj, and therefore it is mandatory only for those performing Haj. For the rest of the people it is an optional ritual, and its method is open to consideration, in other words to Ijtehad, which is the use of one’s judgement in applying a principle recommended by Allah to better suit different times, and varying circumstances, if the Quran fails to present a solution. The Quran often does present a principle for our consideration, and therefore the word ‘principle’ is underlined above because that is the main aspect of any ritual.
Qurbani or sacrifice of an animal, a (highly) recommended ritual, is prescribed, as we all know, as a reminder, a way of keeping a very important event in history alive in the minds of Muslims; to ensure that people do not forget the great, the very important sacrifice where the Prophet Abraham (pbuh) showed himself willing to unquestioningly sacrifice what he held most precious, his child, in the name of God when the sacrifice was demanded of him. Not only this, but his child, the Prophet Ismael (pbuh) was as willing to be sacrificed for that same reason. Muslims are asked to sacrifice an animal in commemoration, as eventually once both Abraham and Ismael had indicated their willingness for the deed, Ismael was taken away and a sheep took his place on the sacrificial spot.
It is recommended that to recreate the original event as closely as possible, the person making the sacrifice should attend the animal, spend time with it, and strive for a certain affection before the animal comes under the knife.
Feeding the poor and increasing communal goodwill are the other aspects of the sacrifice.
If this is how the ritual is to be performed, it is unfortunate that there is no infrastructure to support it. The absence of storage facilities in this country has already been mentioned. In Saudi Arabia sacrificial animals were burnt or buried until recently when they have started flash freezing them, and the meat is now distributed around the Muslim world.
In Pakistan, streets are awash with blood, gore and carcases after the event, which makes this a health hazard.
A benevolent God does not prescribe waste, either of the money or the animal. If this meat – or the money – is unable to go some way towards helping the poor, or reinforcing the faith behind the sacrifice, there is something lacking in the way it is done.
Getting ‘close’ to the animal is hardly possible now, the way we live. This is no longer a nomadic society, or a small one where cattle lives close to or among humans. In places where they do, those are the places that are the recipients of charity, not those performing the sacrifice. So we have a cow or a goat tethered to someone’s gate being fed by the servants, until it is slaughtered by a butcher. The owner’s interaction with the animal begins and ends with the dispensing of cash to buy it. At present, obviously with many exceptions, the main thrust behind the ritual appears to be to demonstrate one’s financial capacity to spend an increasingly fantastic sum on the animal/s, and to eat as much meat as possible on the day. That, indeed is now the high water mark of the event. The principle behind it, the feeling of a sacrifice, the regret at the death of this animal is entirely absent. If there is a regret it is at the loss of the money that went towards the purchase.
If that point is taken into consideration, it is clear that it is the money that needs to be sacrificed, rather than an animal. It is a quieter, more considerate way of achieving the same purpose
For those who wish to sacrifice an animal in the traditional manner better sanitation facilities must be made available, as they should be available anyway. This manner of sacrifice would also benefit greatly by storage facilities so that the meat might be stored and then dispensed appropriately, in some kind of planned, rational manner.
For those who are willing to consider an alternative, it is worth considering how much difference this huge annual sum would make if it were spent in better maintaining existing government hospitals, and particularly schools in the country. An educated person who is able to stand on his own feet no longer requires charity. The charity initially given would go much further, and so would the memory of the two men whose sacrifice this ritual commemorates.
Eventually, to keep that narrative alive is up to us. And so is the way we do it.
