In Praise of Sacrifice : 10,000 Gather for Islamic Festival

Meant to coincide with the annual mass pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, Sunday’s Islamic festival of sacrifice in Orange County became something of a pilgrimage itself.

About 7 a.m., a half-mile stream of worshipers began filing into Mile Square Regional Park, and two hours later they still were coming.

By the beginning of a second prayer conducted for latecomers, an estimated 10,000 men and women were bunched on prayer rugs laid across a broad strip of asphalt once used as a landing zone for military aircraft.

An estimated 50,000 Muslims live in Orange County, and though the Islamic Society of Orange County’s mosque in Garden Grove is reported to be the largest in the western United States, it is too small to accommodate the crowd for Eid ul-Adha.

Every year, thousands come.

“It is our universally accepted holiday,” said Muzammil Siddiqi, the mosque’s director and imam (prayer leader), after his sermon.

“It is called the great holiday. It is recognized as a historic and very important incident by Jews, Christians and Muslims, although it is only in Islam that it’s still celebrated.”

Eid ul-Adha commemorates a 4,000-year-old event: the patriarch Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s behest.

In the versions of all three religions, God, satisfied by Abraham’s obedience, at the last moment prevents the killing, allowing a lamb to be substituted for the son.

“Abraham was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of God, for the higher value, the higher principle,” Siddiqi said, adding that the significance remains today.

“People have to be willing to sacrifice their time, comfort, resources. If everyone becomes selfish, they cannot do good.”

Part of the holiday’s tradition is to wear your best clothes.

Some worshipers arrived dressed in traditional Middle Eastern dress, while others chose suits and dresses.

Men laid their prayer rugs in ranks closest to the pulpit, and women formed a separate group to the rear.

Led by Siddiqi, they repeated their prayers in Arabic while standing, then kneeling, then sat to hear Siddiqi’s brief sermon.

In English, he urged them to hold fast to the principles of Islam, “the religion of unity” that condemns “racism, division and separation.”

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He urged them to remember Abraham’s devotion to God, to realize that God is more interested in “the piety of your heart” than “the blood of the sacrifice.”

He urged them to remember the sacrifices of Muslims in war-ravaged Chechnya and Bosnia and the victims of “brutal Israeli attacks on civilians” in Lebanon.

“We all need each other,” Siddiqi said. “All of you are important. Let us work for Allah [God], for justice.”

At the end of the service, worshipers stood and embraced, wishing each other Eid Mubarak (holiday blessings).

Ritual sacrifice remains a part of Eid ul-Adha observance, even in modern Orange County, Siddiqi said.

“Some people will go to Chino and buy the livestock and sacrifice it and distribute the meat among the poor and the needy. But not too many people do that. There are international organizations for this. People can contribute money, and that money can be used for sacrifice.

“The second aspect the principle of sacrifice is in your life,” Siddiqi said.

“It’s not just slaughtering an animal. It’s our own selfishness we have to kill so we can be good to each other.”