Muslims across Asia celebrate Eid al-Adha

Those Muslims who didn’t travel to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage this past weekend can still celebrate the Hajj holiday of Eid alAdha, which millions of Muslims did Monday across Asia.

In the Philippines, Eid alAdha is an official threeday public holiday, even though most Filipinos are Catholic, and today almost 1,000 Muslims gathered for prayers inside and beside a mosque in Taguig City, south of Manila, an epa journalist reports.

Most devotees laid out prayer mats on the street beside the mosque, with the men and women separated according to Islamic regulations.

The imam of the mosque led the prayers broadcast over a sound system in a dialect of Tagalog spoken on the southern island of Mindanao.

Following the prayers, the worshippers ate the cooked meat of more than 50 goats which were slaughtered before the prayers started.

Across town in Metro Manila, about 500 Muslims gathered to pray at Luneta Park, a popular venue for large public events.

With men assembled ahead of the women, everyone spread out mats on the grass and prayed facing west in the direction of Mecca.

In the world’s most populous Islamic country of Indonesia, people prayed early this morning near Senen market in central Jakarta, an epa journalist reports.

Hundreds of Muslims prayed in the parking lot by the market, and spilled onto the street nearby, as few mosques in the area had the capacity for so many people.

It was a curious sight in trafficchoked Jakarta, one of the world’s worst cities for gridlock according to the CastrolMagnatec StopStart Index, but as today is a holiday the traffic was light and there were no reports of disruptions at the street prayer site.

The ceremony near Senen reportedly lasted about 40 minutes, with the prayers taking place for about 10 minutes, followed by a speech by an imam about the meaning of Eid alAdha.

In Indonesia’s northwestern province of Aceh, one of the most religiously conservative in the country, and where Sharia law is in force, 10,000 worshippers flocked to Blang Padang Park in Banda Aceh, an epa journalist reports.

As the provincial capital’s main Baiturrahman Grand Mosque is still under construction, and most other mosques in the city weren’t large enough to accommodate such crowds, most people chose to pray at Blang Padang.

Half of the park was used this morning as a parking lot, and half for praying, and people turned up dressed in their best, and in some cases most colorful clothes.

The hourlong ceremony included a sermon by a local imam, who reportedly said people should be prepared to sacrifice things in their lives for God, just as Abraham from the Old Testament and the Koran was prepared to sacrifice his own son to God.

In Banda Aceh alone, Muslims today slaughtered about 1,000 cows and about 600 goats for Eid alAdha, and some of the meat was laid out on blue tarps, to be distributed to the poor.

Across the Bay of Bengal in Buddhistmajority Sri Lanka, members of the Muslim minority gathered today at the Galle Face Green park in Colombo to pray on Eid alAdha, an epa journalist reports.

About 2,000 people, almost all men, met at the urban park which faces the ocean and prayed.

After the prayers an imam gave a speech in Arabic and then finished off by urging in English that everyone should pray for peace among all Muslims of the world.

Looking somewhat out of place amid the sombre religious atmosphere was a snake charmer who sat on the ground with two cobras, a python and a monkey in hopes of receiving donations.

Eid alAdha, the “sacrifice feast”, and Eid alFitr make up the two Eid holidays during the year for Muslims, with Eid alAdha marking the Hajj pilgrimage.