This past weekend, the Muslim world celebrated Eid-al-Adha, the holiday of sacrifice, known as Kurban Bayramı in Turkey. Everyone in Turkey simply refers to this holiday as Bayram, and since that's much easier, I'm just going to call it that for the rest of this post. All of this information is based on how it works in Turkey, but the practices are fairly similar throughout the areas where it is celebrated. Bayram began on Friday, October 3, with a preparation day and then the actual holiday lasted from Saturday, October 4 through Tuesday, October 7. Bayram celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son when God asked him to, so tradition is for all Muslim families who have the ability to sacrifice a sheep, cow, goat, or camel depending on where in the world you are. Everyone that I saw here in Turkey was sacrificing a sheep, so that seems to be convention here. On Friday, it wasn't surprising to see a sheep in the back seat of the car next to you or people leading their sheep through the streets of the town. For most non-religious Turks, Bayram now serves as just a vacation because we had Friday through Tuesday off of school. However, Muslims have very specific things that they are expected to do for this holiday. Prayer is a very important part of the holiday, which I saw firsthand when I walked past a mosque and saw that the entire inside was packed as well as the overflow space outside and all the lawns around the mosque. There was something really beautiful to me about that many people all gathered together celebrating a very important holiday to them. Another important aspect of Bayram is that you are expected to keep 1/3 of the meat of the animal you sacrifice for yourself and your family, give 1/3 to your neighbors, and donate 1/3 to the poor and needy. The sacrifice part of Bayram is very important to Muslims and found it very interesting when my sister told me that she dislikes watching the sacrifice but that it is their duty as Muslims to do it.
I believe that my family sacrificed our own sheep, but I was not present for the actual killing. However, I watched our neighbors skinning and removing the meat from their two sheep and I watched my family cut up the meat from our sheep and that was more than enough for me. After the sacrifice, my neighbors hung up their sheep on a tree and cut off all the skin along with the head. Then, they cut off the various edible parts of meat and put them in buckets to be prepared for cooking. I watched this while my host parents and grandmother cut our meat up to be cooked. There was a tray with all of the internal organs and multiple buckets filled with various other meats. All of the internal organs were cut into little pieces and cooked up together while the other meats were cut into chunks and strips and fried up.
One of the huge buckets of meat in my host family's home on Saturday morning. There were at least 2 others just like this, filled to the top with meat.
Some of the meat frying up on the skillet. The amount of meat that was cooked that day is still mind blowing for me.
The pan of internal organs. As I watched my host dad cut up the liver, I was having unpleasant flashbacks to a certain biology lab last year.
The whole time my family was cutting the meat up all I could think was please do not save me out any special internal organs. As my sister pointed out the sheep's heart to me, I just hoped and hoped that they weren't going to put a piece of meat on my plate, inform me that it was a heart, and then expect me to eat it. Turks have a tendency to give guests what they consider to be the best parts of the food, which the internal organs are considered to be, so this was a very real fear.
After a long while of cutting and cooking the meat, we had lunch. I personally was not a huge fan of any of the meats I ate. I found that the regular pieces of meat tended to be very tough and often still had fat or veins in it, which was a little gross for me. The internal organs were all very chewy and I just was not a fan of the taste. I chose not to ask what part of the sheep I was eating during the meal because I really did not want to know but I am fairly certain that I ate stomach, which surprisingly was my favorite thing.
Our lunch table with some of the meat on it. Much more arrived after this photo was taken.
My plate with most of what I ate.
Bayram was an extremely cultural experience and I am really glad that I was given the opportunity to witness it. Aside from the brief moment when I seriously considered becoming a vegetarian right then, I found it very enjoyable to spend the time with my family and to see the things that are important to them from a religious stand point. I also really enjoyed Bayram because after our lunch, various relatives and friends visited the house and stayed and talked for awhile and we also went and visited some relatives. Each place you went, you were offered food and drinks and often, the children were given money (always a good thing for a money conscious exchange student). People also called the house throughout the weekend to talk with members of the family. I heard and said the phrase "Iyi bayramlar" (essentially just Happy Holidays) more times than I can count. It reminded me a lot of the vibe of Christmas in the US.
My advice is that if you are traveling to Turkey, try to avoid doing it during Bayram. For one thing, the traffic and travel is very crazy and many of the tourist things you want to see may be closed. But I would also avoid it because no matter how open minded or not squeamish you think you are, you will find Bayram at least a little disturbing. We would never see something like this in the US, so it's a little frightening to look into your neighbor's yard and see 2 dead sheep laying on their ground. Although very interesting to see, it can definitely be a little disturbing, especially as an American. However, if this kind of religious event interests you, I definitely suggest trying to see a Bayram celebration, as it is fascinating in that regard.
Keep in mind that this post was all based on things I observed and a little bit of research and it may not apply to every celebration. I hope you enjoyed learning a little about this part of Muslim culture as much as I enjoyed witnessing it for the first time. I will hopefully be writing another post on Sunday about the last 2 weeks here. Thanks for reading! Teşekkür ederim! Hoşçakal!
This is amazing, Kate. So glad that you were able to see all parts of this amazing celebration!
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