Catherine Cartwright Jones c February 14 2002

Id al-Adha is the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, the holiest and grandest festival of the Muslim calendar.  The feast falls on the 12th month of the calendar, Tho El Hija, the month of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.  The Feast of Sacrifice lasts for four days and commemorates Ibrahim's (Abraham’s) obedience to God in all things, even to sacrifice his own son Ishmael if such was required.  God intervened at the moment of Ibrahim’s sacrifice, providing a ram in place of the beloved son so that Ishmael might live.    The Feast of Sacrifice requires every head of household to sacrifice a goat, sheep, or other domestic ruminant, in memory of Ibrahim’s devotion to God if he or she can possibly afford to do so .  A third of the meat is eaten by the sacrificer’s family during the Id holiday, a third is given to relatives, and the remaining third is given to the poor.  Id al-Adha is one of the two times of the year that every Muslim, no matter how poor, can expect to eat their fill of meat. 

The Origins of Id al-Adha Sacrifice and Henna
Henna is an important part of this Id sacrifice, and has been significant in many celebrations since the pre-monotheistic Bronze Age.  The Ugaritic Canaanites used henna in association with their ritual associated with spring fertility sacrifices of domestic ruminants, as well as harvest festivals, as noted in the Ugaritic Myth of Baal, in the version of Ilimilku (de Moor, 1971:  85).  In this epic myth, young women gather fresh henna leaves when the rainy season ends and the warm seasons begins in late March or early April, when the Pleiades are visible in the early evening western sky. They applied the henna to their hands and feet, as is documented the Ugaritic text and in the Apocrypha, “The Second Book of Adam and Eve” chapter 20 verse 31. During the period from 3000 BCE to 1200 BCE, ceramic pieces from Minos, the Cyclades, Mycenae, and Cyprus depict young women displaying dark red stains on their hands and feet.  This fertility festival featured the sacrifice of domestic ruminants for Baal, the rain bringing bull-god (Hooke, 1965: 83) (De Moor, 1971: 85 – 123) from about 3000 B. C. E.  This tradition may have been established as early as 7000 B.C. E. in Catal Huyuk, Turkey, where fertility ritual actions were associated with red hands and a bull god marked in red, (Mellaart. 1967), with henna plausibly being the source of the red colorant in practice. 

This is just the first page of Catherine's paper, "Id al-Adha: The Ecological and Nutritional Impact of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, and the Significance of Henna in this Sacrifice".  If you are interested and want more, see: TapDancing Lizard Publishing!