As far as I know, the purpose of Qurban/Eid al-Adha festival is seeking to get near to Allah, to get close to Allah. However, nowadays, many Muslims may have forgotten the meaning of Qurban.
This time, I had an opportunity to join the Qurban festival at a friend’s house. At first, I wanted to participate and to watch their worship. However, my friend did not know exactly when the day of worship is, so we got the timing wrong. We were late by a day, so we did not participate. Later, my friend told me that many people actually do not know the exact day of the Korban festival. This also reflects that many of today’s young Muslim friends do not quite understand their own religious festivals. Of course when ask them; what is this festival for? Possibly, many of them may not know. I did ask before and indeed, this is true.
By attending the Eid al-Adha festival this time, I have the deepest impression in several aspects:
Firstly, many Muslims nowadays have become ‘Festival Muslims’, which means they will only go to mosque to join in worship during important festivals; in their own words, worship in the mosque is for the elderly people with nothing to do. We will only go when we get old!
Secondly, at present, many Muslims are ‘nominal Muslims’ ie. they know nothing about the basics of their religion and their faith . If you ask them, “What is Muslim?” They only know that Muslims do not take pork (every Muslim knows this) or they may tell you what the Muslim’s festivals are, who the prophets are. That is all. If you ask them whether they believe in these, they may tell you: “Don’t believe”.
Thirdly, worship has become formal, which means that during worship, everyone would scramble to run out by the time the Imam finished the last sentence. It was as if they had something very urgent they needed to attend to at home. This worship, this festival is to get close to Allah, but from their action they seemed like having the attitude of not wanting to get near to Allah, is it!
Fourthly, this festival has become a way for them to show off to one another. If your family slaughtered a sheep, then our household would slaughter a cow; if your family slaughtered a cow, then our family would slaughter a yak. When all relatives and friends got together, they would start to boast: So, how is your family this year! How much money does your family make this year? My family house is newly built and we make this much, this much of money. His son gets himself a wife and makes more than a hundred thousand. In any case, it was there they boasted to one another, The families not doing well this year would sit aside quietly eating their meals. After finishing the last dish, everyone roared and then disappeared. Since this was the first time I joined the Korban festival, the impression I had would be deeper. They might not feel anything.
Fifthly, the festival has become an occasion for them to feast. While they were eating with one family, suddenly everyone left before the last dish was served. Initially I felt they were very strange. Later, I found out that they might want to hurry to another family to continue eating. They would continue like this for 3 days if they have many relatives. Perhaps in one day they might have to join 7 or 8 families to feast. The most pitiful is the Imam; he had to eat a little in every family he visited. He had to go to all the families under his administration in three days’ time; on average more than 10 families in a day.
If the Korban festival has become as such, is there still any meaning to it?