`Īd al-Ad-hā, << IHD uhl ahd HAH, >> also spelled Eid al-Adha, is one of the two major festivals in Islam. The other major festival is `Īd al-Fitr. `Īd al-Ad-hā falls on the 10th through the 13th days of Dhūl-Hijja, the last month of the Islamic calendar. It moves backward through the seasons, because the Islamic calendar is based on the moon. That makes the Islamic year much shorter than the solar year, with only 354 days. The festival coincides with the completion of the hajj, the pilgrimage Muslims make to the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. `Īd al-Ad-hā means Feast of the Sacrifice in Arabic.
On the first day of the festival, Muslims gather an hour after sunrise in open spaces or in mosques to perform a community festival prayer service, called salāt. Muslims who can afford it sacrifice an animal, such as a camel, cow, goat, or sheep. The sacrifice honors Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his older son, Ishmael, and God’s decision to substitute a ram instead. In the Christian and Jewish scriptures, the intended sacrifice is Abraham’s younger son, Isaac. The Qur’ān, the holy book of Islam, explains that the sacrifice is not an offering of meat to God, but a pious act of sharing food. Those who sacrifice share equally with the poor and with their neighbors. During the festival, children receive gifts, and people visit family and friends.
See also Calendar (The Islamic calendar) ; Hajj ; `Īd al-Fitr .
