Eid al-Adha

On the first day of the happy Eid al-Adha people are accustomed to slaughter a sheep or more, to distribute among the poor; the hearts of the afflicted are gladdened by a meal of mutton offered them by a generous man of means, a devout and striving worshipper.

I too have been accustomed to slaughter a sheep or more, to distribute its meat among the poor and the wretched; but I never contented myself with this. True sacrifice — and the happy Feast of Sacrifice, as its very name shows, is the feast of sacrifice — true sacrifice is to sacrifice your appetites: to curb your anger when it boils up in your breast, to strangle fear when it storms within you, and to kill savagery when it contends for your heart. In all this lies the true sacrifice we ought to seek, not on the happy Eid al-Adha alone, but on the morning of every day; for this human being, who is you and I, has need of this resolve and this will every morning — otherwise anger begets fear, and fear begets savagery, and all wars have their origin in anger, fear, and savagery.

Every stone that tumbles down the slope drags many stones after it as it falls; and so hunger, envy, and fear bring to the surface many base appetites, which lead to treachery, enslavement, and wars, and to the like caprices and calamities of which man is the first victim. Why, then, do we not sacrifice these appetites on the morning of Eid al-Adha, and on the morning of any feast, as we sacrifice the sheep? And why do we not stand every morning and say: 'This is the day of sacrifice — the sacrifice of instincts and appetites, those fat sheep that carry deadly poison in their flesh'?

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The blessed Eid al-Adha falls at the close of the first third of this month. The Woman's Voice seizes this occasion to raise its deepest congratulations and blessings to its Muslim readers, men and women, in every land, with warm prayers that the coming feast may secure for the Muslims and for all the Arabs every good and every ease.

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Every new invention must be regarded as we regard a raging tempest threatening us with extinction. We must guard today against the danger of the airplane as we once guarded against the Roman legions; both are a danger if we do not manage to bridle them in good time — if we do not manage to slaughter their danger in the name of God.