Kurban Bayramı

Yep, that's what you think it is. 

The Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha is called, in Turkey, the Kurban Bayramı, or Sacrifice Holiday. While an unlikely holiday to spark a family reunion, this is one of the biggest holidays on the Turkish calendar. Though I have lived in different countries before, each with their own peculiar holidays (like the Dutch Sinterklaas and his minions the Zwarten Pieten) I have never actually lived in a country that was not predominately culturally Christian. I knew before coming that I would obviously not be given the traditional Christmas break that we are so accustomed to in the US, but I hadn’t given much thought to the surprise holidays of the Muslim calendar.

The first one was a welcome Friday off, which coincided with Halloween weekend. Which I described a few weeks ago. The second I don’t know if I would classify as a typical holiday, because we didn’t get work off but, wow. It needs to be classified as something. It was the day of the anniversary of Ataturk’s death. Now, if you ever talk to a Turk, and you don’t know whom Ataturk is, just pretend you do. There is an impressive (if a little off-putting) cult of personality surrounding the founder of the Turkish republic. But, considering what the man accomplished, as well as the era in which he came to power, an era that threw up such leaders as Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, I am reluctant to say anything negative about the guy (and its not just because it could land me in prison.) He was the military leader during the Battle of Gallipoli, he was the one who reconsolidated power after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of  WWI, and he is the man responsible for both the modernization and secularization of the country. He had the power of a dictator, but he wielded that power in a way that actually benefitted the Turkish people.

Its no surprise therefore, that they commemorate the day of his death. The way in which they commemorate his death is what really threw me for a loop. On the 10^th of November, at 9:05am (the date and time he died) everybody stops—people, cars, busses (as far as I can tell)—and for one minute, sirens sound and people honk their horns. Now, I knew this was all coming, I had been warned about it and had read about it, but I guess that I assumed that the siren would sound and then there would be a minute of silence. Nope. There was a full minute of sirens and horn honking. Then, at the end, everybody just went back to work. Our university had a commemoration where they played (and sang) the national anthem, and then over a loudspeaker they played a really loud siren sound on a loop for a full minute.

Intense. But, back to the sacrifice.

Everybody takes a week off—a welcome break from work. It’s also impossible to purchase tickets anywhere. This is the homecoming, kind of like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one. And since 99% of Turks consider themselves Muslim, forget the diversity of vacations found for Passover, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa (do people take that off?), Chinese New Year, Greek Easter, etc. There is one holiday season, and this is it. No, “Happy Holidays” to be P.C., but rather iyi bayramlar, happy bayram.

So, the Sacrifice Holiday. Well, I must say that I love the names they give to holidays; Halloween in Turkish is Cadı Bayramı or “The Witch Holiday.” But really, the Slaughter Holiday, sounds intense right? And, it is, but it certainly wasn’t what I expected.

The way it works—and I am only speaking about Turkey here—is that the head of the family, of any family that can afford it, goes to one of the slaughter centers and bargains with a farmer and purchases an animal to slaughter. Now, what on earth is a slaughter center? Well, the Turkish government, in an effort to protect the quality of the meat (I think) designates specific centers in cities where this exchange and slaughter can occur. In the villages it seems that this still happens wherever the town square happens to be.

So, the men all gather and haggle over the price of the animal. Then, once they have agreed upon a price, the animal is slaughtered and the meat is donated to the poor. This is one of the important parts of being a Muslim, giving alms to the poor. This holiday celebrates Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Ishmael (yep, Ishmael and not Isaac--if you're up on your Biblical history--it’s a slight differentiation in the Qu’aran.) Ismael was the son of Abraham’s maid Hagar and he was the one, according to the Qu’aran, who was to be slaughtered and not his proper son Isaac. When God told Abraham that he would in fact not require him to prove his faith by killing his son, Abraham sacrificed a lamb to show his generosity to God. Think of this as a reenactment, on a greater scale.

The thing that struck me the most about this holiday was that you would have been totally unaware that it was a holiday, if you ignored the closed shops. I almost forgot it was the day of the bayram since the women have no part in any of the ritual. There was no special meal, no special religious service. All they did was add a few prayers over the course of the day to the typical prayers—and since I don’t pray I really didn’t notice much of anything. I assume for the men it is a different experience, but for me it was more or less a typical day.

So to spice up what was turning out to be a very ho-hum day, I asked Selen if there was any way I could go and see the slaughter. I wasn’t sure when I would again have the chance to witness this holiday and I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss it. So, we walked down to the slaughter center, which was, ha, get this, in the front courtyard of the local school.

See the school behind? Just what you want children seeing when they return on Monday-- BLOOD.

There were two cows still awaiting their demise, and there was everything else I was hoping for. There were heads of dead cows, just hanging out on the ground, big heaps of intestines lying in the sun. There were ribs being cut into more manageable sizes with—wait for it—an ax. Other hunks of meat were hanging letting the blood run out the way that halal food preparation requires (it’s the Muslim version of kosher.) We just pretended I was a journalist and I was able to get pretty close to the action with Selen’s boyfriend’s awesome camera (mine is still awaiting the charger to be sprung from Turkish customs).

PETA, eat your heart out.

This has gotten me all geared up for Thanksgiving on Thursday. I am still working on getting a turkey, which, of course would be difficult to find in Turkey. I have a contact at the Istanbul consulate who has offered to scrounge around the boxes of foodstuffs shipped over by the government and dig up a few cans of cranberry sauce and perhaps some Jiffy mix. So have a happy Thanksgiving, 

lots of love to you and yours on Turkey Day from Turkey.