Can you sacrifice a sheep in Ireland?

Carlos_Ray

I know a lot of Muslim families around the world will be sacrificing Sheep tomorrow for Eid Kabeer. They are sharpening their knives on the street outside my house as I type this. Is this practice legal in Europe? If not how do Muslims mark the occassion?

FoxT

I do not know . It is a great question.

I expect that it is possibly illegal on the grounds that it may be seen as cruel.

On the other hand, it may be permissible as a bona fide expression of faith.

Whether it is legal or not, if it becomes known about then I expect that the person doing it could expect to receive a lot of harassment from the so-called 'animal rights' people, and perhaps some unwelcome gutter media coverage as well.

Jim

Perhaps it is legal if they eat the animal? Or do something useful with it? People kill animals every day in this country legally for food or for the animals welfare. Not sure what the exact law is with regard to this.

FoxT wrote: »

the so-called 'animal rights' people

Why so-called and why ' ' ?

wes

I don't think it would be legal to do it in your home, but you can pay a halaal slaughter house to do it, and they stun the animal first before cutting its throat in Western countries due to local sensitivities.

Also, some people send money to charties like Islamic relief (that is what I did this year), you can find more information about that here:

Qurbani Donations - Islamic Relief

I like the charity option as I don't need the meat myself, as I can get plenty of meat cheaply, but people in other countries, might not be able to afford it, so I think it better to donate it to them.

Manic Moran

As an aside, I'm in two minds if I think it's an odd custom or not. I mean, fine, one rarely needs an excuse to have a barbequeue and you have to kill the animal first, but does the killing itself really need to be the focus of the ritual? Wes' 'stunning' observation does seem to be the most reasonable.

Watched a few sheep being sacrificed at a bridge opening. They cut open the neck of the one, and let him bleed out in front of the other two, who were taking an unhealthy and morbid interest in proceedings. "Oi! Joe! Joe? Dude... you OK?" They then let the two other sheep just stand by the corpse for about ten minutes before returning to polish them off in quick succession.

I guess it's common, though, I saw something similar at a street butcher in Iraq. Cow #1 was bleeding out on the footpath right in front of cow #2 which seemed to be doing its best to look at anything except cow #1...

NTM

Cantabile

It's done here alright, with the aid of various entrepenurial farmers and butchers. I got some meat from a colleague yesterday!

irishconvert

Manic Moran wrote: »

Watched a few sheep being sacrificed at a bridge opening. They cut open the neck of the one, and let him bleed out in front of the other two, who were taking an unhealthy and morbid interest in proceedings.

This is not Halal slaughter. There is a clear rule that you are not allowed to kill the animal on front of other animals.

Manic Moran

irishconvert wrote: »

This is not Halal slaughter. There is a clear rule that you are not allowed to kill the animal on front of other animals.

Huh. Interesting.

Even if I had known that, I would certainly not be about to tell the locals that they were doing it wrong. Maybe there's a local interpretation which differs from yours?

Picture of incident (Obviously shows blood)
https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/52871/104364.JPG

Granted, at the time the photo was taken, the two other sheep were looking the other way, but I'm sure I got some later when they were examining their buddy.

NTM

Carlos_Ray

Was kept awake on Thursday night with the crying of a lamb on a nearby balcony obviously the left over from some deal during the week. Its mother was obviously killed on Wednesday and it wailed for about 8 hours straight. From what I withnessed the treatment of the animals during this religious festival was appaling. People dragging sheep down roads by their legs, putting them in car boots, securing them in tiny balcony enclosures, and of course finally slitting their throats ( most people didn't do it cleanly either).

I think Manic Moran's posts are an accurate portrayal of the reality of this practice. The more time I spend living in a Muslim country, the more I am aware of the canyon size gap between what many preach and how many live.

Manic Moran

As a complete aside, I'm in my tank one day providing overwatch at the entrance to one of the US bases in Iraq. I've got the 'gate' frequency tuned in on the radio.

"Command, this is gate 3"
"Go ahead 3"
"What's the policy on letting sheep onto the base?"
"Say again?"
"I've got an Iraqi here requesting entrance with a live sheep on his shoulders. He works here, claims he's filling an order from a group of Turks who requested a sheep for a celebration. I guess they're going to eat it"
"Did you search the sheep?"
"Well, the outside of it, yes."
"OK, run the metal detector over it, and let it in..."

Someone's been playing too much 'worms'

NTM