Aid Kabir

The Aid Kabir, which literally means “big holiday” in Arabic, celebrates the story in the Koran where Allah tells Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as a test of his faith and his devotion. Ibrahim is willing to do this, but then at the last minute before the sacrifice Allah tells Ibrahim that he had passed the test and told Ibrahim to sacrifice a ram instead. So every year every Muslim family buys a ram and sacrifices it to celebrate this.

We had a lecture about Aid Kabir, where the lecturer told us that although a lot of people these days think that it’s barbaric to do the sacrifice but that it’s also a huge part of Muslim tradition and it’s a big deal for every family to get their own ram and do their own sacrifice. He also said that the Aid was thought of as a celebration of human life because it was symbolic of Ibrahim keeping his son and sacrificing the ram to Allah instead.

I just got back from Spain the night before the sacrifice, so it was especially shocking coming back from Western culture to see all this. The night before the sacrifice we all did henna. My host Mom covered her palms and soles of her feet in henna as well as designs on the sides of hands and feet like married woman are supposed to. My sister and I got small designs on the tops of our hands as unmarried women.

The morning of the sacrifice I didn’t really know what to expect so I was sort of hanging around with a book watching all the preparations. It felt like a holiday – everyone was bustling around and excited, but it felt really wrong, because I knew they were all bustling about in preparations to kill the ram that was on our terrace. I watched TV with my host Dad all morning that showed various celebrations going on at the palace. Then they showed the king’s sacrifice, which my host Mom got excited about and told me watch, but it seemed almost too businesslike and quick the way that they did it and not much like a sacrifice at all. All that happened was that they sprinkled some water on it quickly, said a prayer, then held it down and the king ceremonially slit its throat. Pretty soon after that my host Dad got out a huge knife and started sharpening it, and then my sister told me to get my camera and I was ushered up to the terrace. There were some neighbor boys helping out along with my host Mom and Dad and sister. I stood a ways away over in the corner. It all happened very quickly, and I didn’t watch the whole thing. It was sort of surreal to see an animal that big being killed though – I think I’ve only seen fish die, not a huge animal like a ram. Anyways, they did it exactly like the king had – they held it down, slit its throat, and let it bleed out. There was an incredible amount of blood. I was proud of myself for not fainting or doing anything embarrassing like running away or getting upset. I didn’t help butcher it or anything, though, like some of my friends did with their families. I kept sort of watching through my fingers like it was a scary movie. It was really disturbing to see it trying to run away even with its throat cut, and it was really disturbing when they started chopping the head completely off when its body was still alive. I took exactly one picture of all of this because I felt like I should at least sort of document it, so this is all I got:

After that I went downstairs while they did the neighbor’s ram and while they butchered the rams and got all the meat out and everything. I decided before all this that it would be extremely hypocritical to not want to see an animal die because I eat meat, so I’ve probably eaten a ton of animals in my lifetime. It was still strange seeing a ram die and knowing that I was going to be eating it for the next couple weeks. In America we’re so separated from the idea that meat comes from an actual animal. It’s really different meeting the animal you’re going to eat and seeing it go from alive to dead to you eating it.

That afternoon we ate the liver and the stomach, or so I was told. Here's my host fam grilling:

That was pretty much it. I went out with my friend that night and the substances on the street were pretty questionable. There were a lot of blood stains and in one corner there was a huge 10x10x10 foot pile of ram innards and carcasses. I remember that I had just finished talking about how disturbing it was to see all the innards and stuff on the streets, and I was wondering where they put all the extra stuff that they didn’t save to eat, and then I turned around and saw that huge pile, which was funny and perfect timing in a really sick way. Also, my friend, who is Moroccan, kept talking about how sore his arm was from cutting off ram heads all day, which I couldn’t take seriously. (A lot of the younger Moroccan men get paid to help families sacrifice their rams.) I didn’t even know how to have sympathy for someone being sore from that.

The next morning I woke up to my house looking like a butcher shop – my host Mom and sister were cutting up all the meat on the kitchen table and putting it in bags to freeze. The next couple weeks were funny in the sense that I always had to ask what part of the ram I was eating. They really use every part of the ram. One choice moment was when we had the usual couscous on Fridays, and there was a ram skull right in the middle of the couscous. That was the only time I ever lost my appetite from all the ram meat was watching my host Mom and sister go at the head in the couscous. They literally eat everything – the face, the eyes, and they suck the marrow out of the bones. They don’t eat the brain though.

So, that’s it. After the next couple weeks of nothing but ram meat (which just tastes like lamb) I have never appreciated normal things like chicken or noodles so much in my life. However, despite all the absurdities and semi-traumatizing incidents, I’m glad I got to see the Aid Kabir because it’s such a big part of culture here.