Prayer standing

The celebration of Eid al-Adha in Moscow and St. Petersburg was accompanied by large-scale traffic jams

One of the main Islamic holidays, Kurban Bayram (the day of sacrifice), was held in Moscow on such a grand scale that not only the faithful, but also the Orthodox, and residents of the capital professing other religions, and even atheists, involuntarily joined in. Due to the huge crowd of believers who came to prayer yesterday at the Cathedral Mosque near the Olimpiysky sports complex (according to the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, at least 70 thousand Muslims gathered here), many kilometers of traffic jams formed on all nearby highways, including Mira Avenue and Yaroslavskoe Highway. By half past eight in the morning, Yaroslavka stood for 20 kilometers. The jam began to clear only towards noon, long after the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin, had finished his solemn sermon.

The subway was also overloaded: impressive queues formed at the entrance to the Prospekt Mira metro station, and many of those who needed to get to the Circle Line station (the lobby of which is located on the opposite side of the avenue from the sports complex) neglected the underground passage and paraded along the road parts, which created additional difficulties for drivers. A similar situation was observed in St. Petersburg, where due to the crowd of believers at the Cathedral Mosque (where at least 40 thousand people came), traffic was paralyzed on almost the entire Petrograd side.

The holiday was held on an equally large scale in Tatarstan, where, just like in other Islamic regions of Russia, Kurban Bayram was declared a non-working day. Republican television channels broadcast a festive prayer, which imam-khatib Ramil Hazrat Yunusov served in the Kul-Sharif mosque, recently built in the Kazan Kremlin. “This joyful holiday of generosity and mercy is another good occasion for everyone who preaches Islam to demonstrate its humanistic, peace-loving essence, and to contribute to harmony in society,” said Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov. The heads of Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, Adygea and other regions where the Muslim population predominates addressed similar festive appeals to the residents of their republics. The Circassian diaspora of Turkey and the Middle East, the number of which significantly exceeds the total number of Adygeans, Circassians, Kabardians and Shapsugs living in Russia, through the Mufti of Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory Nurbiya Emizha, donated 600 thousand rubles to their co-religionists. for the purchase of sacrificial animals - rams and cows intended for ritual slaughter on the holiday of sacrifice. The celebrations, which began on Tuesday, will continue for two more days.

The Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, or in Arabic Eid al-Adha, timed to mark the end of the Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca), is not tied to any date of the generally accepted calendar - just like, for example, Christian Easter. The Feast of Sacrifice is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Dhul-Hijj, the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar. In this calendar, the beginning of each month is counted from the first day after the astronomical new moon. 70 days must pass from Ramadan to Eid al-Adha. For example, last year the day of sacrifice was celebrated on November 27, and in 2011 the holiday will coincide with the anniversary of the October Revolution.

The custom of sacrificing animals - sheep, camels and cows, according to Muslim theologians, is a memory of one of the episodes of the Koran, which has parallels in the Old Testament. According to the holy book of Islam, the archangel Gabriel (biblical Gabriel) appeared in a dream to the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and conveyed to him the command of Allah to sacrifice his first-born Ismail. For comparison: according to the biblical Book of Genesis, the Lord commanded Abraham to “offer as a burnt offering” his second son Isaac; Abraham's firstborn Ishmael, considered the ancestor of the Arab tribes, according to Jewish and Christian traditions, was expelled by his father after the birth of Isaac. Otherwise, the Old Testament and Islamic versions do not differ: when Abraham Ibrahim was ready to sacrifice his son, the Almighty, having ascertained the devotion of the righteous man, sent him a lamb for sacrifice.

It is believed that the sacrificial animal intended for slaughter on Eid al-Fitr must be at least a year old: as a rule, it is either a two-year-old bull, cow or goat, or a camel that is at least five years old. Part of the skin of the victim is given to the mosque, and the meat is divided into three parts: a third goes to treat the family of the faithful, a third is distributed among poor neighbors and relatives, and a third is given as alms to everyone who asks for it. As a rule, meat is eaten at a common meal, which can be attended by any Muslim, and it is desirable that the imam of the local mosque honor the holiday with his presence.

Mikhail MOSHKIN