Sixteen-year-old Hassan Adams slaughtered his first animal last week on a farm near Syracuse.

He followed the process as he was told — slitting the three jugular veins with a swift movement of the knife — so that the animal wouldn’t suffer a lot, and said a prayer on it so the meat could become halal.

“My hands shook a little in the beginning,” Adams said. “But it was amazing; I pray to Allah that he accepts my sacrifice.”

Adams, among others in the Muslim community in Syracuse, celebrated Eid al-Adha, one of the largest Muslim festivals, on Sept. 24. On Eid, Muslims sacrifice animals such as sheep, goat, lamb and cows. Eid is their time to offer sacrifices to Allah, celebrate with family and share the meat with the poor. The meat is divided into three portions: one portion for the poor, one for the neighbors and one for the individual.

Magda Bayoumi, a board member of Interfaith Works — one of the two main refugee agencies in Syracuse — said she has seen the city’s Muslim community grow from 500 people to nearly 12,000 people in the last 35 years. Some of the people go to farms to slaughter animals while some donate money to nonprofits, Bayoumi said.

It was the first Eid that Adams celebrated in Syracuse with his family. Originally from Uganda, Adams and his siblings have spent all their life in South Africa with their mother. Adams’ sister, Jamilah, said their mother had been trying to get refugee status for their family for five years. The family finally reached Syracuse on March 31, but without their mother, who passed away in January.

“A couple of years ago, Mom bought two chickens for Eid because we didn’t have any money to buy a goat,” Jamilah said. “She asked Hassan to slaughter a chicken and he let go of it during the process, and the poor chicken was dancing on the table with half of his throat slit.”

Jamilah said she was skeptical of Adams’ ability to slaughter the animal, but the slaughtering went well, and the whole family participated in the process.

Irfan Elahi, a volunteer at Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary, took the family to Leach Farm, which is about an hour from Syracuse. Elahi, a Pakistani-American, said in Pakistan most people slaughter animals at home, but since home slaughter is not legal in the United States, people go to farms with licensed slaughterhouses.

 

Elahi said he encouraged Adams to slaughter the animal because he wanted him to experience the tradition firsthand. Elahi recalled that his father used to take him and his friend to the farm every year, where his father would slaughter the animal and they would help him. Then they would bring the meat home, distribute the portions and then cook their share.

“Now, I go to the farm every year by myself to slaughter since my father has grown old,” he said.

When Elahi was younger, he said there was no concept of giving money to organizations who would do sacrifice on one’s behalf. Now, a lot of people donate money to the organizations doing the Qurbani — or the sacrificing of animal — for them.

Adams and his family spent their last Eid al-Adha in Johannesburg, South Africa, Jamilah said. They were invited to a family friend’s home where they ate Indian food like Biryani — spicy rice cooked with meat — and tikka — barbecued meat marinated with Indian spices.

Jamilah said Eid celebrations would continue for at least two days back home. The night before Eid, girls would get together to make henna tattoos on their hands. Everyone would wear new clothes in the morning and go to pray in the mosque.

 

“Eid is not a public holiday here in America, so Islamic Society of Central New York sent a letter to Hassan’s school about the Eid holiday,” Jamilah said. “But we still got a call from his school in the morning about his absence.”

Jamilah added that Eid is different in the U.S. and said it can feel isolated for a person who does not have anyone to celebrate with.

But Adams seemed to be having fun, and told everyone that he had sacrificed his first animal.

“It was good, our first Eid-al Adha in America,” he said.

Published on September 29, 2015 at 9:31 pm

Contact Srosh: sranwar@syr.edu