Eid Mubarak!
Eid Mubarak friends! Eid al-Adha is the festival/feast of sacrifice, honouring Prophet Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) trust and willingness to sacrifice what he held most dear – his son Ishmael. Before he could carry out the sacrifice, however, God replaced Ishmael with a ram. People around the world commemorate this event by distributing fresh meat amongst the poor and needy.
This festival also marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Millions of people will have completed their circumambulations around the Holy Kaaba and will be making their journey home – safe travels, pilgrims!
The edifice of the prophets was raised without greed;
that’s why the splendors of its renown increased without pause.
The grandeur that accrued to the Ka’ba
was derived from Abraham’s acts of pure devotion.
The excellence of what the prophets build
is not from earth and stone,
it is from the absence of hostility or self-interest
in the one who is building.[Mathnawi IV: 1136-1139, The Rumi Daybook, tr. by Kabir & Camille Helminski]
Image ‘Kaba’ by Azim Rehmatdin.
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