My Holiday Rituals
- ramohame
- Apr 10, 2019
- 2 min read
Learn about my holiday: Eid al-Adha!

What is the holiday?
My family celebrates “Eid al-Adha” which means “festival of sacrifice”. This is a muslim holiday and it is a very holy day for muslims. The date of this holiday depends on the sighting of the new moon. This year it is estimated to be around August 10th.
What do we do?
During this holiday, because my family is blessed with money, my family will send money overseas ahead of time to Jordan and/or Palestine to purchase a lamb, which will be sacrificed in the proper way and the meat will be given out to the poor and some to family members.
Beforehand, my mom, my sisters and I will make shortbread cookies filled with date paste from scratch, which we call ka’ak. My mom distributes these cookies to close family and friends.
Early in the morning of the actual holiday, my whole family will wake up and we will dress in nice clean clothes that we usually purchase new for the holiday, we will do the ritual washing that muslims perform for prayer, then we will drive to a mosque for Eid prayer. At the mosque we pray, chant “takbir” and “allahu akbar”, and wish others “Eid Mubarak”. This means you are wishing them a blessed holiday.
Here is an example of the takbir. And here is a video about making one version of ka'ak.
After the Eid prayer, we will go eat a family breakfast together, either by ourselves or with other family members and family friends. The rest of the day is spent around family and friends, usually at play places that are fun for kids so that they can have a fun holiday and adult men in their close families will give their family members money.
Why do we celebrate this?
The reason for this holiday is from a story in the Quran. The prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him), was told by Allah (Subhana Wa Ta'ala) to sacrifice his own son as an act of obedience to his command. Because of his obedience, Allah (SWT) instead gave Ibrahim (pbuh) a lamb to sacrifice. The holiday is to honor prophet Ibrahim (pbuh) and if fortunate enough to afford it, we sacrifice lamb in his name (typically, half is kept by the family and half is distributed).
Family is very important this holiday which is why we spend a lot of time together. Eid Mubarak from the Mohamed family!

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