Sacrifice Holiday
Over the past week, the people we live among celebrated a Sacrifice Holiday (called Kurban Bayrami). It is a religious holiday (supposedly in honor of Abraham's near sacrifice of his son - Islam teaches it was Ishmael rather than Isaac), but it seems that it has become more of a time to follow tradition and visit with family. These are some pictures we took in a local grocery store parking lot (similar to Wal-Mart). People can literally reserve their lamb or goat (or sometimes even cow), place it in a shopping cart (yes - the same shopping carts we use to push around our groceries inside the store!), wait in an extremely long line for their turn in the slaughter shed. The animal is killed at the first stall and then moved down the line to be skinned, divided up, etc. (we will spare you the details). Istanbul is such a modern city, so it is hard to grasp this seemingly eastern (and archaic) practice. Mymerhaba.com has a simple description of the holiday's traditions in Turkey, although we have found that this holiday means many different things to many different people.
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on Sunday, January 15, 2006 at 6:28 AM.
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