Hari Raya Haji (English)

Yesterday we celebrated another muslim festival which is called Hari Raya Haji or Hari Raya Aid ul-Adha.

First Sarodin and Danial went to the nearby mosque and conducted a special prayer. I had just woken up when they returned home. I asked if I had missed the sacrifice ritual but my host father soothed me. He told me that the event wa just about to start so I hurried to the mosque on foot. The day before I had already noticed that a long strip of the grass had been mowed shorter and some pickets had been plugged into the ground. There were’t as many people as I expeced. I walked towards the end of the street where some men were disembowellig the sacrificed cow. As Bukit Jelutong is a rich people housing area there were eleven more cows waiting to be sacrificed.

Every time a cow was to be slaughtered a member of the mosque announced the donator and the person that it would be sacrificed for. Than he gave a sheet to another man. That particular person squatted down and layed his had on the cow to read a short prayer thanking god before cutting the cow’s throat. What followed was disgusting: the thick dark red blood sloshed out of the big wound ad formed a small river of blood flowing down the slope. Immediately all the spectators began to sing a prayer. This belongs to the muslim way of slaughtering, which the muslims also call HALAL. The men waited until the cow was dead and didn’t move anymore before they began to disembowel the cow. The meat was brought to the mosque’s courtyard where other people cut the meat into smaller pieces.

My family picked me up and we spent the rest of the day at my host grandmother’s house. There we were served the traditional dishes for Hari Raya Haji: Lemang, Ketupat, Ayam Rendang, a sweet dessert mae from grapes and a noodle dish.