WHAT IS EID AL-ADHA?

Eid al-Adha, one of two annual festivals in the Islamic calendar, involves prayer, lambs and family.

The Festival of the Sacrifice, as it translates, honors the story of Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah before Allah switched his son for a lamb.

Each year, on the 10th day of the final month of the Islamic lunar calendar, able Muslims around the world commemorate this act of obedience by slaughtering a lamb or other domestic animal with a prayer to Allah.

Traditionally, the animal meat is then split into thirds, with one third for the immediate family, one third for friends and neighbors and the final third for the needy.

The animal, according to custom, must be slaughtered without seeing the knife, and the man performing the ritual, typically the head of the family, must complete the action in one clean cut while saying a specific prayer to Allah.

In the United States, Muslims often use a local butcher or go to a farm for the slaughter.

Like church on Christmas, mosques fill for the morning prayers on the holiday. Children often receive gifts, and people celebrate with barbecues.

Eid al-Adha is at the end of the month of the pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, believed to be the birthplace of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The holiday marks the last day of the hajj, which is a once-in-a-lifetime obligation for Muslims who are physically and financially able.