Eid al Adha commemorates Abraham's trust in and dedication to God by recalling the story where God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael to Him and right before committing the act God saved Ishmael and rewarded Abraham's faith by providing him with a lamb to sacrifice instead.
This eid is a very big holiday in Islam, kids get a week off of school, people give gifts, spend time with family, share meals, etc. At Bobbi's school there was a huge assembly the last day of school before the break and it sounded to me like not much else got done that day. Hearing her tell it reminded me a bit of the last day of elementary school before Christmas break where, at my school at least, we all sat in the auditorium and sang carols and watched a student play and had a blast. In my public school in the U.S. we weren't really supposed to dwell too heavily on the religious aspect of Christmas, so we sang seasonal carols like Jingle Bells and songs of Santa Claus, our plays starred elves instead of three wise men. The school here, though, didn't shy away from the idea that Eid al Adha commemorates a blood sacrifice to God, but other than that the celebrations are very similar.
The scripture on this tower is a passage from the Holy Qur'an that all believers must recite. It says, "There is no lord but God and Muhammed is the prophet of God."
The school is small enough that all the students (around 100) were able to participate in the assembly. From what I understand there were different stations set up and the school went from station to station and circled around it singing in Arabic, presumably about what that station represented regarding the sacrifice Abraham made.
Eid al Adha marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage to the Islamic holy city of Mecca and the celebrations begin after the descent of the pilgrims from Mount Arafat into the city. This sculpture represents Mount Arafat.
Another ritual act of the pilgrimage is the stoning of three pillars in the city of Mina just east of Mecca. These pillars are meant to represent the devil and the stoning is a symbolic act of casting the devil out of the lives of believers. The students at Bobbi's school built their own three pillars in the gym.
Apparently this whole thing culminated with a "sacrifice" of a "lamb" where the girl performing the sacrifice actually stuck red tape to herself to represent the blood of the lamb.
To some people that might sound disturbing, but Christianity has the exact same story of Abraham's sacrifice in it in Genesis 22:1-18. There's even a song that asks if you've been "washed in the blood of the lamb" and therefore saved. All these similarities are fascinating to me! And I absolutely can not understand how, with so many similarities, people are so moved to fight over the differences in their faiths.
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