My wife is an amazing cook. MashaAllah.

After the skinning and gutting, I took four big pieces to a local halal butcher, where a nice young guy cleaned and butchered the animal.

The whole sacrifice, start to finish, took about 4 hours. Alhamdulillah, Allah made it easy for us. Thanks again to brother Suhaib, without whom I might still be standing around trying to figure out what to do.

I brought the meat home, and after going around to visit a few neighbors as part of Eid celebration, Hana and I packaged up the meat (1/3 for friends and family; 1/3 for the people in need; 1/3 to eat), and she prepared a lovely meal of fresh goat foreleg and rice. It was absolutely delicious.

So that was the whole udhiyah experience, from farm to table. May Allah azza wa jall accept our sacrifice. Continue reading “Udhiyah (part 4: dinnertime)”

After selection, the goats and sheep were driven further out into the back part of the farm. Brothers collected their animals, marched them off some ways away, out of sight of the other animals, made the sacrifice, and then some seeming professionals stepped in and did the skinning and gutting for a small fee.

I stood with the little fellow for quite a while, making soothing sounds, proclaiming the greatness and oneness of Allah, and generally trying to comfort the goat. He relaxed quite a bit, and just stood with me, followed me around, and seemed quite at ease.

After a time, I led the goat over to a clearing, some brothers helped lay it on its side and gave me some instructions, and then I said “Bismillah. Allahu Akbar!” and with a quick slice it was done.

I didn’t shoot the actual sacrifice part. 1) I had my hands full; 2) I sorta forgot; 3) insofar as it’s an act of worship, maybe it’s best that I was just present there in the act, without the mediating effects of picture-making competing for my attention.

Sharp knives are key, and make short work of the actual act. And since the goal is to minimize any fear before or suffering during the actual sacrificing, short work is a must. In fact, Allah azza wa jall may not accept the sacrifice if the animal suffers too much or is frightened, and if the animal is too tense, the meat can get a bit tough.

With that done, I carried the corpse over to a place they had set up for cleaning and gutting, and watched while a couple of friendly fellows made quick work of the skinning and gutting.

Continue reading “Udhiyah (part 3: cleaning and gutting)”

Going into this, I hadn’t spent much time around goats since that one died in the backyard under rather mysterious circumstances back when I was a kid. So, as you might imagine, I didn’t know much about choosing a goat to sacrifice.

Islam has some rules about this: the animal must be of a certain age (goats must be a minimum of 1 year old) and in reasonably good health (blind, maimed, sick, or otherwise imperfect animals are unacceptable: we strive to give the best to Allah azza wa jall). But beyond that, it’s kind of an eenie meenie miney moe type affair for many first-timers.

I saw a couple of good looking specimens, but mentioned to Brother Ishaq (one of the organizers) that I didn’t know much about selection criteria, and a couple of minutes later he just handed me one.*

I don’t know much about goats, so if you do maybe have a look at him and let me know what you think.

In case you missed it, this is udhiyah week: yesterday we took a brief look at the farm, today we picked out a goat, and coming up soon we’ll sacrifice it (not pictured), skin & gut it, butcher it (not pictured) and cook some up.

Continue reading “Udhiyah (part 2: selection criteria)”

Today marks the last day of Eid al Adha, the second, and final, holiday in the Islamic calendar, marks the end of the Hajj (for those blessed enough to be able to attend and honors Abraham (alahi salam) and his willingness to sacrifice his son.

A major part of the celebration is the udhiyah (أضحية)—the sacrifice—and I’m interrupting the usual flow this week to share some parts of my experience.

Instead of our usual programming, this week we’ll briefly visit the farm (today), select a goat, sacrifice it (not pictured), skin (& butcher) it, cook it up, and eat it.

So here’s the farm:

I was surprised to find such a large plot of land in this particular part of Texas. It just seemed to go on forever, and much of my time there was spent deep in the wilds of the back part of the property.

This was a wildly interesting experience, and one that I’m still trying to process. Apologies for not having more to share with you today.

May Allah accept the udhiyah from me and all the Muslims throughout the world, Ameen. Continue reading “Udhiyah (part 1: the farm)”