Why Muslims Will Always Sacrifice Animals on the Eid

Recently, blogger Anila Muhammad posted “Should Muslims Reconsider AnimalSlaughter on Eid?” on the Canadian edition of the Huffington Post.1 Sheclaims that some animal advocates are asking this question. Of course it is anactivist’s right to raise such an issue, even though it could be offensive to practicingMuslims. In reality, however, the majority of Muslims neither know ofsuch a proposal, nor would they consider its possibility. Boldly claiming thatsome Muslims are calling “for an end to animal sacrifice,” she cites these “notableanimal advocates” and, full of passion and confidence, states that “manyMuslims do not see the tradition of sacrifice to be serving ‘their understandingof Islam.’” Intriguingly, she cites several Qur’anic verses and presents herown understanding of them – an understanding that happens to contrastsharply with the widely accepted narrative of Muslim scholars who base themselveson the Prophet’s actual practice and understanding.Although she presents the arguments from several perspectives (viz., intellectual,religious, social, and economic), I suggest that instead of “pretending”to know the Qur’an and Islamic worldview, she should have stuck withher activist perspective and thus avoided a response from Islamic intellectuals.But the way these activists keep citing the Qur’an to legitimize their argumentsand claiming to know better what Muslims should do not only suggests littlefamiliarity with Qur’anic content, but also exposes them to a rigorous and faircriticism from real scholars of the Qur’an and Islam ...