Eid Al Adha in Morocco

Eid Al Adha (the Festival of the Sacrifice) begins in Fez, Morocco with the call to prayer at 5:30am – 2 hours before sunrise.  After morning prayers, Muslims return home for time with family and for breakfast.  They await King Mohammed VI’s TV appearance, where he will be the first in the country to slaughter a sheep, commemorating God’s provision of a sheep to sacrifice when the prophet Abraham was preparing to sacrifice his son Ishmael over 4,000 years ago.

After the king’s sacrifice, fathers and sons slaughter the sheep they have purchased and brought into their homes in the preceding days.  The animals’ throats are slit, then they are skinned, gutted, and beheaded.  Over the next 3-4 days of the Eid holiday, the entire animal is roasted, baked, or boiled, with one-third or more of the meat given by families to the poor.

After the slaughter, fires are kindled in the streets and alleyways of the city.  The wire and springs of old mattresses are used as makeshift grills for the sheep.  On the first day of Eid, the skulls and legs of the animals are thoroughly roasted - brains and leg meat are eaten.  On successive days, the shanks and rib meat are eaten, then eventually the rest of the animal.  

In the medina, it seems that the rituals are observed largely as they have been for centuries.

[Pictures below are not for the squeamish]

We saw sheep being transported in cars and trucks, on motorcycles as well as carried on men's shoulders.

One of our friends, Linda, was invited into a Moroccan home to observe the slaughter of the sheep (which was then skinned and butchered).

In the medina, fires are kindled in the streets and alleyways where the heads of the sheep are roasted - often on the wires and springs of old mattresses.

After butchering the animal, the skins are either sold by families, or sometimes given to the poor (who will then sell them).  This man is carrying a skin into the medina to sell.

Here, sheepskins (and one goatskin or small calfskin in the foreground) are collected buy leather buyers in the streets after the slaughter of the animals.