Sighting Moons
and Sacrificing Goats
By Naeem Sadiq
Via email
When invited to a single dinner,
it is inappropriate to turn up for meals on three
consecutive evenings, just because one is unsure
of the specific date. The same however is not
true for Eid. Our current norm is to celebrate
three Eids because we find it difficult to pinpoint
the exact day when it ought to have been celebrated.
In the business of engineering design, it would
be termed as a 'factor of safety'. If remained
unchecked, we could be fast moving towards yet
higher prime numbers such as five, seven, or eleven.
Perhaps some of us are taking Madam Noor Jehan's
famous advice 'Har roz hovey saada Eid warga',
rather too literally.
The government, as always, is sympathetic to the
recreational and spiritual needs of the people
and is all the time looking out for additional
opportunities to declare holidays. Eid provides
an ideal uncertainty for this holiday extension
program. A dozen or so gentlemen of varying qualifications
are formed into a Ruet-e-Hilal Committee and tasked
to introduce conflict, chaos and confusion to
the entire process of deciding when to have an
Eid. The committee's other main function is to
oppose any rational or scientific suggestion of
celebrating Eid on a single day in all parts of
the country.
Over the past many years the 'committee' has done
an excellent job and found unique methods to ensure
that there is always a difference of opinion on
when exactly to celebrate an Eid. One of its much
tried out techniques is to fall back on the services
of two 'momin/ Muslims' who would vouch for the
fact that they had a fleeting glimpse of a new
moon -- on whichever day of the year you want
them to say so. In a country of 150 million Muslims,
there is normally no dearth of such volunteers.
The fact that the moon's appearance and location
can be predicted far in advance is no longer a
secret. It has nothing to do with any state, politics
or religion. It is just like predicting the time
of sunrise or sunset for tomorrow, next week or
next year. These issues are astronomical realities
and have nothing to do with any religion or Ruet-e-Hilal
committees. Leave aside space observatories or
scientific organizations, there are websites today
that provide technical support to individuals
and organizations concerning the rising, setting
or position of the sun or moon and the time of
their appearances for any location and date. It
may therefore be best to discontinue and disband
the irrelevant Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, and relieve
these holy gentlemen of the torture of aimlessly
gazing through unfamiliar gadgets. Reminds one
of a blind man in a dark room looking for a black
cat which is not there. The government could simply
consult SUPARCO or the metrological office to
determine the day of appearance of a new moon
and declare the exact Eid day and the Eid holidays
in its holiday calendar at the beginning of each
year.
The rich and the mindless in our society have
taken the sacrificial process to new heights of
ostentation. The expensive imported Australian
cows and the large sized sheep or goats serve
the same exhibitionist purpose as the fuel guzzling
Pajeros or the unending wedding feasts. Even where
the animals do not belong to the BMW or the Mercedes
class, they are just as much of a nuisance when
tied up for many days (just outside your gate)
and then slaughtered in the middle of the road.
It is an unwise solution to allow people to slaughter
animals in homes and on roadsides, to turn the
streets into pools of blood, and then to have
hundreds of municipal staff clean up the mess.
The gutters either get choked with coagulated
blood, or simply shift the high protein burden
to the nearby ocean waters, further harming the
already distressed aquatic life.
If our government was genuinely sympathetic towards
the health and hygiene of its citizens or preventing
proliferation of filth and disease, it would prohibit
all animal slaughter in homes and roadsides (as
is done in most civilized countries). Instead,
special slaughter arrangements (at a distance
from residential areas) should be made in each
locality, where everyone could bring an animal
and have it slaughtered under hygienic controls
and conditions.
These specially arranged slaughter facilities
could include housing of animals, professional
slaughtering, waste removal and even arrangements
for collection and recycling of left over animal
body parts (i.e. blood, skins, hooves, heads,
horns, offals, etc.). So instead of first polluting
the whole town and then trying to clean it up,
can we not adopt a pro-active approach of providing
hygienic and professional slaughter places to
our public?
Can we expect that the year 2007 will see science
and reason replacing the Ruet-e-Hilal committees
and the house-to-house slaughtering of animals
relocated to hygienic slaughterhouses?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
