The annual practice alışkanlık of putting millions of sheep and to cattle sığırlar the knife in the name of adına honoring God is once again prompting kışkırtmak; hatırlatmak debate in Turkey as the Kurban Bayram holiday begins Tuesday.
Critics of the ritual dinsel tören sacrifice kurban involved in the holiday, which is celebrated throughout the Muslim world, say the practice is outdated çağ dışı kalmak and fosters beslemek violence; they call for gerektirmek it to be reformed düzene koymak.- or eliminated altogether.
The age-old tradition, known as Eid al Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) in Arabic, has become controversial tartışmalı in Turkey as conservative muhafazakar immigrants göçmen from rural kırsal Anatolia have migrated göç etmek to Istanbul and other large cities, where it is neither easy nor welcome to slaughter kesmek an animal on the street. Doing so creates "disturbing rahatsız edici scenes sahne' according to some urban Turks and Turkish media outlets that have been complaining about encountering karşılaşmak animals, and their bloody remains kalıntı, in unexpected parts of the city.
Staunchly güçlü bir şekilde secular laik columnist köşe yazarı Bekir Coşkun stir up ayağa kaldırmak the debate recently with a piece in daily Cumhuriyet in which he denounced itham etmek the "culture of slaughter' he claimed the animal sacrifices instill işlemek in people's minds,implying ima etmek a link between the traditional celebration of the holiday and violent şiddetli crime in Turkish society. Conservative commentators yorumcu reacted tepki vermek to the column, accusing Coşkun of disrespecting sacred kutsal values and pointing out dikkatini çekmek that violence exists var olmak in all societies, saying Coşkun only put the blame suç on an Islamic ritual due to dolayı his own bias önyargı.
Though karşın the 4,000-year-old story behind arkasında the Feast of the Sacrifice is common ortak to all believers in "Abrahamic' religions - Jews, Christians and Muslims - in the modern world, only adherents yandaş to Islam commemorate anmak it in a literal aslına uygun way. As the story is told in both the Bible and the Quran, God tested Abraham's faith inanç by telling him to sacrifice his beloved sevgili son to his Lord. Abraham obeyed the order, but at the last moment, God showed his mercy merhamet by miraculously mucizevi bir şekilde sending a lamb to be the victim of the sacrifice instead yerine.
During the holiday celebrating this miracle, every adult Muslim who can afford parası yetmek it is expected to either sacrifice an animal or - more commonly these days - have it done by a butcher kasap. The meat is then divvied paylaşmak up, some of it kept to be consumed at home, and the rest distributed dağıtmak to neighbors, especially the less fortunate.
The reform agenda
As even some religious conservatives have come to find the practice disturbing, more modern solutions have recently been developed so Muslims can fulfill yerine getirmek the duty of sacrifice without witnessing tanık olmak the bloodshed katliam. Municipalities and various birçok charity organizations collect money - generally a few hundred Turkish Liras - from believers in return for a package of meat delivered from a modern slaughterhouse mezbaha. Other groups sacrifice the animals in foreign lands, to distribute all of the meat in starving çok aç regions of Africa or Asia.
In addition to this type of modernizing "reform,' some Islamic scholars alim argue for a much more radical change:abandoning terketmek the practice all together. İhsan Eliaçık, a popular theologian known for his reinterpretation yeniden yorumlama of the Quran, has argued that the religious text does not actually say ritual slaughter is a duty for all Muslims. "When we look at the Quranic verses on animal slaughter, we see that all of them are related to pilgrimage hac yolculuğu,' he said. In earlier times, he explained, Arabs used the kaabah in Mecca - now the most sacred site in Islam - as a paganpantheon and slaughtered animals there during pilgrimages to honor their idols. Islam called for the kaabah, the pilgrimage and the slaughter ritual to be reserved ayrılmış exclusively özellikle; sadece for Allah, the one and only God.
"But later scholars thought that not just the pilgrims but all Muslims should do a sacrifice during the time of pilgrimage,' Eliaçık said. "This is a later interpretation yorum that we can question and change.'
Among the reforms Eliaçık supports is using electroshock to stun sersemletmek the animals into unconsciousness baygınlık before they are slaughtered in order to reduce the amount of pain they experience. More conservative Muslims, along with Orthodox Jews - who use similar traditional slaughtering practices, known as "Shechita,' to obtain kosher meat - have rejected this pre-stunning, arguing that it will make the animals ritually unclean.
A shamanic tradition?
"Among Muslim countries, Turkey has the highest observance yerine getirme of the slaughter ritual,' Eliaçık said, adding that he believes this is connected to the shamanic faith and practices of pre-Islamic Turks who also carried out ritual killings of animals. He compared this to the common aversion sevmeme to pork, which he said was also shunned as unclean by the ancient Turks. "Of course pork is banned by the Quran, but many Turks indulge yüz vermek in other things banned by the Quran, such as wine, while never ever touching pork,' he said.
ultimately en sonunda, Eliaçık suggested, the Feast of the Sacrifice should be abandoned and turned into a "Feast of Solidarity dayanışma,' in which charity for the needy is provided in ways other than through meat distribution. Another popular Islamic thinker, Hüseyin Hatemi, thinks similarly aynı şekilde. "In the prophet's time, animals were slaughtered for the hungry pilgrims who traveled for days to reach the kaabah,' he said. "Today, we Muslims really don't need this 'meat festival.''
Such reformist views are popular with the media and seem appealing etkileyici to the more modernized part of Turkish society. Yet millions of others see the Feast of the Sacrifice as a part of Islam that should never be abandoned, and dismiss the critics who see the practice as brutal. As a post on one Islamic website argued, "Unless one is a vegetarian, then, as a meat-eater, he has no right to object karşı çıkmak to the Feast of the Sacrifice.'