Well stocked …markets brace as thousands flock to buy a beast for Eid
▶ Goats, bulls and sheep selling fast as residents prepare for Eid sacrifice and feast
Thousands of people attended livestock markets across the UAE yesterday to buy goats, sheep and bulls in readiness for the Eid Al Adha sacrifice.
Animals were rumbled in by the lorryload from Al Ain and by dhow from Pakistan, Sudan and Somalia.
Keen-eyed customers were quick to hunt out the best deals for their coming feasts, carefully judging the animals from teeth to tail.
Families could be overheard eagerly discussing how best to cook their chosen dish. This sheep should be perfectly cooked in fermented dried yoghurt, said one. That Najd goat should be topped with garlic, vinegar and tomato, said another.
Ahmed Shoaib, an Emirati business owner, said he was out to buy a bull and three goats for Eid this year.
He strolled through one market tucked away near Mina Zayed in Abu Dhabi with his son Ibrahim, 2, by his side. His wife, Angela Ahmed, looked on from their air-conditioned SUV.
Every year the couple donate some of the meat they buy to cleaners, cooks and watchmen, as well as Mr Shoaib’s employees.
“It’s a sacrifice and we have to give to the people,” he said. “We want to give as much as we can.”
Eid Al Adha – meaning festival of the sacrifice – commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to follow God’s command to sacrifice his son, Ismail.
Having proven his obedience, God provides Ibrahim with a ram and instructs him to slaughter the animal instead.
Today, the meat from every animal slaughtered during the festival is divided into three. A third is donated to the poor, a third is given to friends and neighbours and the remainder is kept for the buyer and his or her family.
The slaughter is considered intrinsic to the celebrations, and in previous years people have traditionally butchered the meat at home.
But nowadays, cities such as Abu Dhabi pride themselves on law, order and cleanliness, and authorities have largely put a stop to unlicensed butchery. Instead, the animals are killed at municipality abattoirs.
In 2011, police even issued a cartoon with a real-life cautionary tale of a sheep that leapt off a five-storey building to avoid being killed.
The goat market in the Corniche in Abu Dhabi is as orderly as the city, with tidy rows of open pens well ventilated by fans. But Eid in August still leaves man and beast sweltering from the humidity.
Pakistani and Egyptian livestock traders suffer the heat every bit as much as their animals. Eid Al Adha also means a week of 14-hour days for the men.
“All the people here are good, the price is good and the goats are good,” said Abdul Jabbar Khan, a trader who has worked at the market for 20 years. “The people are happy, and all is well, praise be to God.”
As for his Eid feast? “Just a plate of chicken,” Mr Khan said. “With all this business, who has time to cook a goat?”
Ahmed Narfeh of Jordan and his uncle Ibrahim Al Jabri said they wanted to spend between Dh400 to Dh500 on meat.
“We’re going to buy a goat on the second day of Eid [today] so that prices will be cheaper,” Mr Narfeh said.
“We will also get 15 kilograms of meat from a sheep and divide it. We’ll buy either a local sheep or one from Pakistan because they’ve grown up grazing rather than on feed.”