EID
GAH-E-MA GHAREEBA’N KOO-E-TO
AZ
HILAL-E-MA KHAM-E-ABROO-E-TO
Khaliqur
Rahman
The
word Eid relates to enjoyment and celebration of happiness. Eidgah is the place
of this celebration. Eidgah-e-ma means the place where I celebrate Eid. Koo-e-to
refers to the area where the lover | the
beloved lives. Here, one needs to keep in mind the Hazrat Amir
Khusro-Hazrat Nizamuddin spiritual bonding. The word ghareeb, in fact, refers
to one who is away from his place (watan).
In
the first line Khusro wants to emphasise that the place of celebration of
happiness for him is where Hazrat Nizamuddin resides.
Hilal
refers to the crescent of the New Moon. For Khusro, sighting the curves of
Hazrat Nizamuddin’s eye-brows is sighting the New Moon crescent that is the
indication of Eid celebration.
Today
is Eid-al-Adhha. It is associated with sacrificing animals. In India, I don’t
know, how it came to be known as Bakr-Eid or even Bakrid. In Arabic baqr means
cow.
In
the newspapers and other notifications one often comes across Bakrid and it is
generally understood as the Eid of bakri, where bakri refers to the female
goat, even when male goats, too, are generally sacrificed in India, and of
course, other animals like cows, buffalos and camels are sacrificed in other
countries like Saudi Arabia.
This
tradition of sacrificing goes back to Abraham, the prophet, who after being
commanded, in a dream, to sacrifice something that he liked, which he did, in
the name of God. The dream recurred. He sacrificed bigger animals and this time
more in number. The dream recurred. Finally, Abraham thought, maybe, God wanted
him to sacrifice something that he liked most. That was Ismail, his son! Both
of them agreed to go the way it was ordained. Hazrat Ismail only asked his
father to blindfold himself, lest he should waver from the resolve.
We
all know they stood God’s Test excellently and so the Divine Hand replaced
Ismail by a lamb.
Therefore,
the sacrifice basically relates to the most favourite and loved ‘material’.
In
the Present Times, what is the most favourite, most loved ‘material? Money! In
the name of God, people, therefore, reportedly, buy tayyar janwar even up to Rs 50,000, perhaps, even more! Some
families are reported to slaughter as many as twelve.
My
brother says when we were younger we never witnessed as many animals being
slaughtered as they are these days, in the name of qurbani. It is also true
that nowadays, more and more people are able to spend more and more money on
celebrations of festivals of all religions because of our economy getting
better and better every year. But the million dollar question that he asks is:
has the quality of Man improved? He reiterates: has the level of honesty in
society gone up?
Ideally
speaking, the purpose behind qurbani is to share most part of the meat with the
poor people who normally can’t buy and eat meat on their own because of penury.
What is generally seen is: the rich send full ‘ran’ (leg) to another rich
family and the rich family reciprocates with a ‘ran’ or even two by way of
return gift. The drunk scavenger, the electricity lineman, drunk or about to
get drunk, the postman and other such people who give their ‘services’ to you
throughout the year, come and take their ‘hissa’ of meat.
What
do you do with all the meat at your disposal? Well, you start with fresh liver
and parathas at breakfast. For lunch you may choose to have korma or bhuna
because for dinner, you’ve invited a few friends for biryani and kebabs.
The
second day starts with ‘brain sookha’ done in onions, green chilies and lemon
to go with puries or parathas. You may keep your lunch simple for you’re going
to have shami kebab, rumali roti, dahi ki chutney and chops for dinner!
Trotters
for breakfast starts day three and entrails in the deep freezer can wait!
I
remember, once, when our family was busy in getting the sheep sacrificed, a
relative of ours appeared, rather nervously, as one of his kin was getting
operated upon and I had promised to donate blood. Unashamedly, I excused myself
on the pretext of this qurbani and
broke my promise.
What
men, like Khusro, were they who never recognized this world as their place
(watan)! What men were they who sacrificed all they had, in the name of God,
and wished to celebrate happiness and Eid only with the most loved.
What
kind of men are we who readily sacrifice an animal that’s been just bought and
refrain from donating promised blood?
I
succeeded in ‘giving’ an animal in place of my own blood. I may as well, next
time, instead of a sheep, give a ‘lecture’
A
Happy Eid!
