Celebrating Eid al-Ahda in Indonesia

Two boys lay out their prayer mats before the morning prayers on Idul Adha.

At the end of October I experienced an Indonesian celebration of Idul Adha, a Muslim holiday also widely known as Eid al-Adha. The holiday coincides with the ending of the annual hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage, to Mecca. The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a remarkable international journey that units millions of Muslims each year in the holy city of Mecca. As my host mom explained to me, during the celebration of Idul Adha Muslims around the world pray for those finishing their difficult pilgrimage.

Idul Adha commemorates the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his own son in submission to God. Livestock are sacrificed symbolically in a ceremony called qurban and the meat is shared among family and friends, and with the poor. On the day before the festival of sacrifice many Muslims fast from sunrise until sunset. 
I was eager to learn more about the holiday, and I really wanted to participate with my host family. I had never fasted before, so with curiosity and a blind resolve I decided I would take part in the day-long fast before Idul Adha. 

We woke up at 3:30am for sahur, the predawn meal preceding the first prayer of the day at 4am. We filled our bowls with steaming white rice and a soup of vegetables and traditional Indonesian meatballs. I helped myself to seconds and gulped down as much water as I could stomach while my host sister explained that it was common to overcompensate with food and drink as a first-timer. I was determined to fulfill my fast, but I was nervous about how I would fare when the sun came out. Twelve hours was a long time. As we ate together my sisters joked that it was like our “mission impossible” and as time quickly ticked by I was propelled into the fast with a sense of solidarity with my sisters and host parents. While my family left for prayer I tucked myself back in bed and slept until my second alarm went off - this time I had to get ready for school.

There were moments when I was tempted to break my fast. A teacher, unaware of my commitment,
gifted me with a soft bread roll filled with chocolate and for a moment I imagined pulling open the plastic wrapper with a pop! and taking a bite of the fluffy bread. But I slipped the package into my backpack and didn't dwell on it. Hours later, I biked past food carts and restaurants on my route home from school, and my salivary glands were seduced by the delicious aromas wafting into the street. But I pedaled on. At home the sight of the water cooler in the kitchen teased my parched, desperate throat, and it was a challenge not to give in. But I remembered the advice one teacher had given me when she found out I was fasting: "it's good to take a nap in the afternoon, before you can break your fast." I settled into my bedroom where neither food nor water could tempt me, and I fell into a calm sleep - napping for an hour or so until my family members returned home.
In the end, I made it all the way until Maghrib, the second to last prayer of the day, and broke my fast with family. The first glass of water to reach my lips was deliciously satisfying. And my newfound appreciation for the drink lasted with each of the following drinks.

Even while my hunger and thirst had sharpened throughout the day, I felt incredibly lucky to know that there would be food on the table and clean water to drink when I got home – something that I had never really appreciated before. As I longed for food and drink in a way I never had before I began to recognize that I am very fortunate in ways that I normally take for granted. Because of the family I was born into I have grown up with an abundance of resources and opportunity and I have never had to worry about access to basic living necessities. Fasting for the day gave me the space to really consider what it might be like to feel the pain of hunger and not know when I might be able to eat next. Because, honestly, much of what kept me going that day was my vivid imagination of the meal we would enjoy that evening. And when we got there, circled around the table in the kitchen, the conversation as pleasant and various as the foods on our plates, I was wholeheartedly grateful. 

Male teachers and staff restrain the cow as it is slaughtered in the ceremony of Qurban.
(Photo courtesy of Pak Budi Yantoro, my entrepreneurship teacher.)

The celebrations began the next day, on Friday, and because Idul Adha is a public holiday in Indonesia we had the day off from school. In the morning I went with my family to the school just down the block from our house for the morning Idul Adha prayer. When we arrived the school courtyard was already beginning to fill up with families from all around our neighborhood. There were long mats laid out across the courtyard in rows and as the call to prayer sang out from loudspeakers people unfurled their prayer rugs side-by-side, and the women put on long white headscarves for prayer. I found a seat on the edge of the courtyard and sat down to watch the prayer ceremony. When it began, verses from the Qur’an rang across the courtyard and a sea of people knelt down and stood up, and raised their arms in a series of movements. Though I didn’t understand what was being said it was incredible to watch, and it was a fascinating glimpse into the religious traditions of my host family and community. After the prayer had finished the entire neighborhood flooded into the street and as we all headed back to our houses there was a sense of friendliness and community in the air.

Beginning after the morning prayer and continuing throughout the day, the qurban was performed in neighborhoods and mosques across the city and the meat divided among neighbors and friends, and those who could afford to purchase meat donated to families who couldn’t. My host father bought five goats to be slaughtered; we kept a few kilograms of the meat and gave a portion to our housekeeper, and the rest was given to those in need. My school also purchased animals to be slaughtered for Idul Adha, and the following day we had a qurban ceremony at school instead of having classes.

When I arrived at school on Saturday morning there were two cows and a goat tied to trees in the parking lot. While students mingled and set their bags down in their classrooms a crowd of people began to gather in the parking lot for the qurban. A group of teachers and staff along with the school principal, exclusively male, untied the cow from the tree and held on to it by the rope around its neck as it fought to get away. It took six or seven men to reign the cow in and tip it over onto its side, and it took all of their effort to hold down the animal and yank rope tightly around its legs as it struggled desperately to break free. As they prepared to slaughter the cow, verses from the Qur’an rang out from a microphone and the students gathered around were encouraged to join in, in prayer. The animal was writhing on the ground, and it seemed to have lost control of its bowels. Feces littered the ground beside the cow; its tail was tucked tightly in between its legs and the dung had smeared across its hindquarters. The men held the cow down and grasped tightly to the ropes binding its legs together, and a large curved knife was used to cut into the cow’s neck. While it happened the cow was trembling and it tried to kick free of the ropes, and even as its head was very much separated from the neck, the cow tried to lift itself up off the ground. Then, after a moment or so, the fighting stopped and the cow became as still as the pool of dark blood that had collected behind it's severed neck.

Two girls in my class prepare the meat for our Javanese beef stew.
(Photo courtesy of Pak Budi Yantoro.)

When the qurban was finished one teacher cut open the cow's hide peeling it open like a paperbook, revealing meticulous illustrations of bovine anatomy. The meat was butchered on a tarp right in our school parking lot. Teachers prepared cuts of meat, and each class of students was given meat and a specific dish to cook. Even after every class got its share a lot of meat remained, and it was weighed out and packaged in plastic for donation to a charitable organization. All of the students spent the rest of the morning cooking around portable stoves in the open parking garage normally used for parking bicycles during the school day. My class was making a Javanese beef stew. We had a mat laid out in the parking lot where we prepared ingredients and took turns in front of the little stove; classes were cooking on mats all around the parking lot and as morning gave way to early afternoon the space filled with warm, spicy smells. When our beef stew was finished we packed up our things and carefully carried the hot stew up to our classroom on the second floor. We each had brought our own portion of plain white rice from home so once all of the dishes had been washed and the leftover ingredients packed away, we served ourselves the stew on top of our rice and enjoyed a delicious lunch together – the fruits of our labor – before heading home for the afternoon. Now, a month later, I’m reminded of our Idul Adha celebrations again as families across the U.S. gather together for Thanksgiving. As I see it, a shared spirit of community, appreciation, and generosity link these two distinct holidays - even when they're celebrated a month and thousands of miles apart.