Eid al-Adha: The Hidden Negative Sides

Muslims say:
“Criticism of Eid al-Adha is just Islamophobia!”
But then why is Eid al-Fitr never criticized?
Maybe it's not hate.
Maybe people just find animal slaughter in Eid al-Adha disturbing.
Let’s talk about why people complain about Eid al-Adha, and not hide behind “hate.”
It’s about the horror, the blood, the suffering, the mass slaughter of animals in the name of faith.
It’s about the uneasy feeling that grips millions of people every year as they watch the streets run red on Eid al-Adha.

Table of Contents:

Part 1: The Ancient Roots of Child Sacrifice

This sacrificial ritual is usually presented as a unique divine command exclusive to Abrahamic religions, but history tells a completely different story. The concept of sacrificing a son to appease the gods, only for a divine intervention or an animal substitute to take his place at the last moment, existed in ancient civilizations long before Abrahamic faiths emerged. These older religions and cultures simply copied these myths from one another to bolster their own belief systems.

• The Phoenicians: Legends tell of the Phoenician king Cronus (whom some historical accounts view as a prototype or source for the Abrahamic character of Abraham) sacrificing his only son to the gods during a severe famine to save his country from ruin. In some versions, the sacrifice is halted or transformed into another shape.

• Greek Mythology: In Greek myths, the tragedy of King Agamemnon is incredibly famous. Before setting sail for the Trojan War, he was required to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to secure favourable winds and appease the goddess Artemis. Just as he is about to kill his daughter, Artemis intervenes, saves the girl, and replaces her with a deer, a scenario strikingly similar to the Abrahamic narrative.

• The Aztec Civilization: In the ancient Americas, the Aztecs practiced human sacrifices, offering young people to give strength to and please the Sun God. Their traditions also included stories where gods intervened at the final moment to provide a substitute or alter the form of the sacrifice.

All of this historical evidence proves that the concept of sacrificing a son was not a unique heavenly event. Instead, it was an ancient mythological tradition shared by various older civilizations, which later religions simply absorbed into their own frameworks.

Part 2: Animal Cruelty and Cultural Mimicry

The prophet of Islam borrowed many rituals and myths from past religions to build his new system. To keep the people of Arabia politically and socially tied to this new framework, several pre-Islamic pagan rituals, including the Hajj pilgrimage, were preserved and integrated into Islamic law. Among these painful and outdated practices were the rituals known as Ish'ar and Taqlid.

For sacrificial animals being led toward Mecca, the pagan Arabs practiced a custom where they would slice open a deep wound on a camel's hump using a knife or spear during the journey. This was done so the blood would flow out and smear across its hide. They would then hang a necklace of old shoes around the animal's neck. The act of wounding was called Ish'ar, and hanging the shoes was called Taqlid. The prophet of Islam blindly followed this cultural custom of the Arab pagans, maintaining it as a valid practice within his own religious law.

According to a narration in Sahih Muslim:

"He called for his she-camel and marked it (Ish'ar) by cutting its hump on the right side until blood flowed, and he hung two shoes around its neck as a collar (Taqlid)."

The companions also strictly adhered to this ritual out of blind imitation.

Muwatta Imam Malik, Book of Hajj (Link):

Nafi' narrated that whenever Abdullah bin Umar stabbed his sacrificial animal in the hump to mark it (Ish'ar), he would say, "In the name of Allah, and Allah is the Greatest."

Muwatta Imam Malik, Book of Hajj (Link):

It is narrated from Abdullah bin Umar that whenever he sent a sacrificial offering from Medina, he would garland it and mark it at Dhu'l-Hulaifah. He garlanded it before marking it, doing both in the same place while facing the Qiblah. He garlanded it with two shoes and marked it from the left side.

Furthermore, the prophet's wives themselves used to twine these shoe collars. Muhammad would put these shoe necklaces not just on camels, but on goats as well.

Sahih Bukhari, Book of Hajj (Link):

Aisha narrated, "I used to twist the garlands for the sacrificial animals of the Prophet, and he would garland the goats with them, and then remain in a state of non-Ihram with his family."

Hanging necklaces of old shoes on animals and cutting them open are such primitive acts that modern religious apologists completely avoid doing them today, despite claiming to love every single sunnah of Muhammad.

Just think about it: Is hanging a necklace of old shoes on an animal anything other than ignorance? What kind of wisdom is there in slicing open and mutilating a living animal? Why would God ever need animals to wear old shoes or be intentionally wounded while alive? Are these facts not enough to show that the Hajj and its associated rituals were simply copied directly from regional Arab culture?

Imam Abu Hanifa's Stance Against Animal Mutilation

This practice was so inhumane and painful that even some of the greatest classical Muslim jurists of later eras could not bring themselves to defend it. Abu Hanifa, the famous jurist of Kufa, along with his teacher Ibrahim al-Nakha'i, recognized the cruelty of this act. They explicitly classified it as mutilation or torture of a living animaland outright refused to practice this sunnah.

This entire incident and the fierce debate it sparked are recorded in detail in Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Hadith No. 906:

Abdullah bin Abbas narrated that the Prophet garlanded his sacrificial offering with two shoes at Dhu'l-Hulaifah, marked it (Ish'ar) on the right side of its hump, and wiped the blood away. Imam Tirmidhi noted that the scholars among the companions and others acted upon this. However, Yusuf bin Isa added, "I heard Waki say upon narrating this tradition: 'Do not look at the opinion of the people of rational discretion (Ahl al-Ra'y) on this matter, for Ish'ar is a sunnah while their opinion is an innovation.' Abu Hanifa had stated that it is mutilation (Muthlah)." A man then remarked to Waki, "It has been narrated from Ibrahim al-Nakha'i that he also said Ish'ar is mutilation." Hearing this, Waki` became deeply enraged and shouted, "I tell you that 'the Messenger of Allah said,' and you counter with 'Ibrahim said'! You deserve to be thrown into prison and never let out until you recant your words."

Cutting into a camel's hump causes intense agony, and it was this undeniable reality that forced Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Nakha'i to label it as mutilation. Later traditionist (Ahl al-Hadith) and Maliki jurists launched harsh attacks against this humane decision. For instance, Imam Ibn Khuzaymah dedicated an entire chapter in his work to refute Abu Hanifa:

"Chapter on marking the sacrificial camel by slicing the right side of the hump and wiping the blood from it, in refutation of the one who claims that marking the camel is mutilation, thereby naming the Sunnah of the Prophet as mutilation out of his own ignorance."

Similarly, Imam Ibn Abd al-Barr wrote in his book Al-Istidhkar:

"There is no evidence for this ruling of Abu Hanifa except delusion and mere conjecture, and established prophetic traditions cannot be abandoned due to guesswork."

The Apologist Excuse: A Mark of Identification

To defend this practice, religious apologists came up with the excuse that slicing the humps and smearing the blood across the camels' backs served as a necessary sign. They argue it let people along the road know these were sacrificial animals so they would treat them with respect.

But how exactly does hanging old shoes around an animal's neck show respect? It was an embarrassing cultural quirk, which is precisely why modern religious people have quietly abandoned it despite its status as a sunnah. If identification was the only goal, there was absolutely no need to mutilate a living animal and smear blood all over its skin. They could have easily used henna or sprayed some paint as a marker. They could have also hung a distinctly colored collar or cloth around its neck.

It is worth noting that Ish'ar (wounding to draw blood) was only inflicted upon camels. Cattle, sheep, and goats were spared this mutilation and were only made to wear shoe necklaces for identification. This raises an obvious question: if marking through mutilation was completely unnecessary for sheep and cattle, and a simple collar was enough, why subject camels to such cruelty? They could have easily just used collars for them too.

When pressed further on this cruelty, some apologists switch to another weak excuse. They claim that slicing the hump does not actually hurt the animal, comparing it to modern livestock ear-tagging or hot-iron branding used in the West. This argument is a complete distortion of the facts:

• Ear Piercing / Tagging: Piercing an animal's ear causes minimal, fleeting discomfort because the skin there is thin and has relatively few nerve endings. It feels like a quick pinch, making any comparison to a deep flesh wound completely ridiculous.

• Hot-Iron Branding: Branding with a red-hot iron is an incredibly painful process that burns and mutilates a living animal. Animal welfare organizations across the Western world have fiercely campaigned against it. It is already legally banned in New Zealand. In Europe, it is only permitted if pain relief is administered, and the practice is being rapidly phased out in favor of far less painful ear-tagging methods.

Yet, religious conservatives cannot protest against the cruelty of Ish'ar because it is considered a prophetic sunnah. In many conservative Muslim societies, speaking out against a sunnah would immediately get someone labeled an apostate or put their life in danger. Abu Hanifa and Ibrahim al-Nakha'i were incredibly fortunate to live in an era where they were not executed for heresy for making a humane critique.

Part 3: The Prophet's Personal Extravagance

To fully understand this entire cultural landscape, it helps to look at the prophet’s lifestyle. While ordinary people are constantly taught moderation, the prophet's own life showed an immense amount of extravagance regarding this specific ritual.

During his Farewell Pilgrimage, he brought a staggering 100 camels with him to sacrifice. According to Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 1218:

The prophet personally slaughtered 63 camels with his own hand in a single day, then handed the knife to Ali to sacrifice the remaining 37. Since it was physically impossible for the people present to consume the meat of 100 camels all at once, a single piece of meat was taken from each animal and cooked in a pot so the prophet could drink some of the broth. The vast majority of the remaining meat was simply left behind on the ground.

Is it even possible to find a clearer example of pure wastefulness? It is because of this very precedent that wealthy Arab princes and affluent Muslims today slaughter dozens of animals at a time in the name of earning spiritual rewards. They do it simply because it is a sunnah of their prophet.

Part 4: Logistic Waste, Animal Rights, and Flawed Logistics

What kind of wisdom is there in forcing thousands of animals to undergo a grueling, exhausting journey over thousands of kilometers from remote regions of Arabia all the way to Mecca? Forcing animals across a harsh desert terrain with scarce food and water just to establish an identification mark makes no logical sense.

Even if travelers along the way respected these animals, countless camels, sheep, and goats died during the journey from dehydration, starvation, sheer exhaustion, and lack of proper care. It was simply impossible for people to manage the logistics of thousands of extra animals at every single rest stop.

While the camel is a hardy desert creature that still ends up completely drained by such a brutal journey, driving small, fragile animals like sheep and goats from Medina or other distant regions to Mecca was a horrific violation of animal welfare. These smaller animals frequently collapsed and died on the scorching desert sand long before reaching Mecca due to a lack of water and severely injured hooves. Many others had to be put down prematurely along the road. This is undeniable proof that this entire system was not designed by some cosmic wisdom. It was just a blind continuation of a local, geographic tradition that completely ignored animal suffering.

This was not an isolated incident that happened for just a year or two. For 1,400 straight years:

• Millions of animals were dragged to Mecca from distant lands.

• Thousands died miserably along the way.

• They were slaughtered in Mecca, and vast quantities of meat were either burned to ash or buried in the ground.

Does this really sound like a system designed by an all-wise and all-knowing entity? Or does it look like a primitive custom that started during a specific era of human history and was carried forward without a single second thought?

Questioning Divine Wisdom: Tons of Meat Burned Each Year

There is no all-knowing deity orchestrating this from above. If an all-wise god truly existed, he would have known that the strange commands he was giving in the name of worship would cause millions of tons of meat to rot and go to waste every single year at Hajj for the next fourteen centuries. The sheer volume of rotting flesh created such an unbearable stench and health hazard that Muslims had to resort to burning the meat to ashes or burying it in massive trenches to prevent deadly disease outbreaks and keep people from fleeing Mecca altogether. You can read the historical details of this reality in this report by The National.

This wasteful cycle continued uninterrupted until 1983. It was only when modern "flash-freezing" technology, invented entirely by non-Muslims, was introduced that steps were finally taken to freeze the surplus meat and ship it to impoverished nations before it could spoil. For the preceding 1,400 years, whenever there was no one left to eat the meat in Mecca, it was systematically burned or buried. Muslims today owe a debt of gratitude to the Western world for inventing refrigeration. Without it, they would still be burning millions of tons of meat in Mecca every single year.

The Flawed "Sun-Dried Meat" Defence

Religious apologists often counter by claiming that people in the old days preserved the meat by drying it in the sun, meaning nothing went to waste.

However, this excuse completely ignores reality:

• Processing the meat of hundreds of thousands of animals all at once requires a massive workforce of butchers, immense physical space, and a lot of time, things that were logistically impossible back then at the occasion of pilgrimage.

• To dry meat properly, you must first completely strip away all fat and cut it into uniform strips. This is a incredibly time-consuming process that cannot be done for millions of animals simultaneously.

• Parts like bones, heads, hooves, offal, tripe, livers, and kidneys cannot be sun-dried at all. All of these parts were thrown away and left to rot.

• Most importantly, the historical record cannot be erased. The article linked above explicitly documents that before 1983, the meat was routinely burned and buried.

The Double Standard of "Carrying Coals to Newcastle"

In English, the phrase "carrying coals to Newcastle" describes a completely redundant action, named after a city that already had plenty of coal.

Today, religious apologists proudly boast that Hajj meat is shipped to poor countries, framing it as a massive act of charity. But look at how absurd the actual supply chain is:

1. First, around 1.1 million live animals are imported into Mecca from poor countries like Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan.

2. Next, they are slaughtered in Mecca.

3. Finally, their meat is frozen and shipped right back to those exact same poor countries.

This is a double layer of absurdity. The original phrase only involves a wasteful one-way trip, but this process forces a costly two-way journey. The animal travels to Mecca alive, only for its meat to be flown back to the very same impoverished country it was bought from.

Let's look at the financial math:

• Transporting live animals is 8 to 10 times more expensive than shipping frozen meat.

• You have to transport all the feed and water needed to keep the animals alive during the journey.

• Massive holding facilities and shelters must be built and maintained in Mecca to feed them before the slaughter.

• Thousands of animals die during transit, turning into a total financial loss.

• The meat then has to be flown back to the origin countries using specialized, highly expensive refrigerated cargo planes.

If the goal were truly to help the poor, this elaborate, wasteful spectacle would be abandoned. The money could be sent directly to those poor nations to buy fresh, locally sourced meat. This would provide the poor with far more meat of a higher quality while saving billions in useless shipping costs. The system does not actually care about the poor. It is entirely about maintaining a theatrical ritual.

Part 5: The Economic Myth of Wealth Circulation

When confronted with the slaughter of millions of animals in a single day, a common excuse is that Eid generates billions in livestock trade. Apologists argue that butchers earn a living, fodder merchants and transporters thrive, and it kicks off a massive cycle of wealth circulation that leaves economists amazed.

This argument completely misunderstands basic economics:

• If these animals were not slaughtered all at once on Eid, they would not magically vanish from the earth. They would still be slaughtered for meat, but that consumption would be balanced out normally across all 12 months of the year.

• Spreading this out over the year would provide butchers with a steady, stable income year-round. Animal hides would enter the market consistently, allowing leather factories to operate smoothly throughout the year without seasonal crashes.

• During Eid, animal offal and waste end up rotting in public streets because there is too much of it to handle. Due to the temporary oversupply of meat, people ignore these secondary parts, leading to massive waste.

Unbalancing the market by killing millions of animals in a single day actually stops the healthy circulation of wealth for the rest of the year. It drives up livestock prices year-round, making meat unaffordable for low-income families during the other 11 months. Bakra Eid introduces so much artificial inflation that poor communities are forced to live on substandard or low-quality meat for the rest of the year. This extreme, concentrated spike in demand does more harm than good to the poor, shrinking normal economic activity for the remainder of the year.

• Following the festival, meat shortages often persist for months, keeping prices artificially high.

• As a direct consequence of this economic distortion, dishonest vendors in places like Pakistan frequently resort to selling donkey meat to unsuspecting consumers during the rest of the year.

The sudden surge in animal demand around Eid causes prices to skyrocket. This results in:

• Making the ritual a massive financial burden for the middle class.

• Butchers charging exorbitant fees, which causes friction and arguments between community members.

• Turning what should be an act of charity into a stressful financial obligation, stripping away any genuine human empathy.

Good deeds only benefit a society when done in moderation. Extreme excess always creates new crises.

Over 25,000 people hospitalized in Lahore alone, just from overeating on Eid

Link to the news

Every year, we see the same headlines. People falling sick, hospitals overflowing, stomachs bloated, and emergency rooms filled, all because of overindulgence in meat on Eid al-Adha.

In just one city, Lahore, over 25,000 people were hospitalized due to overeating during Eid celebrations.

Is this the outcome of divine wisdom? Is this what an All-Knowing and All-Wise Allah would design?

According to Islamic law, not only are Muslims told to sacrifice entire animals, but they are also encouraged to eat from it themselves. The result? An annual flood of gluttony and excess, disguised as worship.

This is not a new problem. It has been happening for 1400 years. And it will continue to happen, because this ritual goes against basic human psychology.

Give people an entire animal, tell them it is sacred, tell them they should enjoy it, and expect them to show restraint? That is not how human behaviour works.

Religious rules are supposed to guide and uplift. But this one leads to hospital beds, upset stomachs, and sometimes even death. And it all could have been avoided with just a little wisdom, a little foresight, a little care for human health.

But when you strip away the claims of divinity and look at it for what it really is, you don’t see divine wisdom. You see man-made traditions, built without understanding of nutrition, health, or moderation, and repeated blindly in the name of God.

How Much Meat Do the Poor Actually Get?

While the public narrative claims this ritual is all about feeding the poor, the actual distribution paints a very different picture:

• According to religious law, only one-third of the meat is designated for the poor.

• Another third is set aside for relatives, and the final third is kept by the person paying for the sacrifice.

• The portion sent to "relatives" usually ends up being swapped back and forth in equal amounts, because all families of similar economic standing are slaughtering animals at the exact same time.

In reality, the vast majority of the meat simply circulates within affluent social circles that are already well-fed. The main outcome is widespread overindulgence, leading to thousands of hospital admissions for gastrointestinal issues every Eid.

If the goal were truly to uplift the impoverished, there are far more efficient ways to do it. Direct financial assistance allows the poor to address their actual needs, rather than wasting capital on the logistics of a chaotic, single-day slaughter.

Part 6: The Psychological Toll on Children

The most disturbing and rarely discussed aspect of Bakra Eid is the emotional trauma inflicted on millions of young children every year. Weeks before the holiday, a live, gentle animal is brought into the family home. Naturally, children bond with the animal, naming it, feeding it by hand, and playing with it daily. They form a deep, genuine emotional attachment to their new pet.

Then, without warning, this animal is pinned to the ground right in front of them. Its legs are bound, and its throat is slit open with a sharp knife. The sight of the struggling animal, the warm blood spraying from its neck, and its final gasps leave a deep psychological scar on a child's developing mind.

• Children naturally empathy with weaker creatures. Seeing their own parents, the very people they trust most in the world, brutally kill a helpless animal while celebrating teaches them a dark lesson. Their subconscious internalizes the idea that might makes right, and that the powerful have every right to take the life of the weak for personal satisfaction.

• Child psychologists note that this experience severely damages a child’s sense of safety. A child can easily think that if their parents can show such cold cruelty to an animal they cared for over weeks, they could easily turn that aggression toward them.

• In the weeks following the festival, there is always a sharp rise in children suffering from insomnia, severe nightmares, and waking up screaming in the night. The images of flowing blood and dying animals remain trapped in their minds.

A Contrast with Global Child Protection Standards

In the developed world, child psychology and animal welfare are protected by strict legal frameworks. It is illegal to expose children to violent, bloody spectacles that can cause long-term psychological harm.

In Europe and North America, animal slaughter is legally restricted to specialized slaughterhouses where the public and children are strictly barred from entering. Animals are stunned before slaughter to ensure they do not experience prolonged pain, and the entire process is handled under hygienic, controlled conditions behind closed doors. Slicing open animal throats in public streets, leaving blood to pool in gutters, and turning slaughter into a public spectator sport are serious crimes.

In contrast, conservative religious societies often push children to the front lines of this spectacle. In the modern world, exposing a child to such unnecessary violence is recognized as a form of child abuse.

Part 7: The McDonald's Comparison and the Charity Myth

A common counter-argument made by religious apologists is that corporations like McDonald's slaughter millions of animals every year without anyone protesting, yet everyone speaks out when Muslims do it on Eid. This comparison completely fails to account for how modern food systems work:

• McDonald's does not slaughter an entire year's supply of livestock in a single afternoon. They distribute their supply chain evenly across 365 days. This stability prevents sudden price spikes, keeping meat accessible and affordable year-round for low-income consumers. This is the exact opposite of the market disruption caused by Bakra Eid.

• Even with industrial efficiency, global factory farming faces heavy criticism in the West. Activists consistently push for a reduction in global meat consumption because it is highly resource-intensive and bad for the environment, which is why plant-based and vegan movements are growing rapidly worldwide.

The shift toward a more plant-based diet is not a cultural issue; it is a matter of global sustainability. Producing one kilogram of meat requires vastly more water, land, and crop resources than producing one kilogram of vegetables or legumes, placing a massive burden on our planet's limited resources.

Debunking the Claim of Supreme Muslim Generosity

Apologists also claim that critics only attack Bakra Eid because they are jealous of Muslim generosity.

First of all, no one criticizes the financial charity of Eid al-Fitr, the giving of Zakat, or the community kitchens during Ramadan. Why? Because those practices do not involve public bloodshed, environmental hazards, or emotional distress. The issue is not charity; it is the specific harm caused by this particular ritual.

Second, charity is a universal human value, not something exclusive to any one group. According to the World Giving Index, not a single Muslim-majority country ranks among the top ten most charitable nations in the world.

Third, a significant portion of international humanitarian aid flows directly into developing nations, providing vital medical supplies, food security, and advanced technology, including the very flash-freezing technology that stopped the Hajj meat from rotting in the sun. Acknowledging this reality is a sign of intellectual honesty and maturity.

Muslims Trying to Hide “God’s Mistake” Behind the West’s Mistakes

Many Muslims try to justify the mass slaughter of animals on Eid al-Adha by saying, “But people in the West also kill animals excessively and eat fish in large quantities. So why criticize Islamic sacrifice?”

Here’s the answer:

Today, millions of people in the West are raising their voices against the overconsumption of meat. They recognize it as a grave mistake, destructive to the environment and ethically troubling.

This is the greatness of human consciousness: to acknowledge our mistakes, to protest them, and to try and correct them.

But can any Muslim ever dare to do the same?

Can a Muslim, on the day of Eid al-Adha, when the blood of millions of voiceless animals is shed, ever dare to call it “God’s mistake”?
Western societies do not claim to be infallible. They admit their flaws and struggle to overcome them. Criticism is not only allowed, it is healthy. It reflects the freedom of thought and the evolution of human ethics.

But when it comes to Allah’s actions, believed to be “infallible” in Islam, why do Muslims try to hide divine commandments behind the errors of the West?

In Islamic theology, Allah is believed to be free from all error. Every command is seen as perfect, flawless, and beyond questioning.

This belief is the very foundation of the entire Islamic system. If Allah is shown to have made even one moral or ethical mistake, then He ceases to be “Allah” and the entire structure of Islam collapses with that one crack.

Here lies the deep contradiction.

When the walls close in, and environmental or ethical criticisms begin to surround the practice of animal sacrifice, Islamic thinkers often dodge the issue by saying: “Well, the West does the same thing. They consume meat and fish recklessly too.”

They try to shield divine orders by pointing to human failures.

But this attempt is weak and ultimately fails.

Acknowledging human error and criticizing it is not the same as questioning a command that, according to Islamic belief, comes directly from God.

Yes, Western society has its faults. We can criticize them, challenge them, and hope to change them. But when it comes to divine commandments, there is no room for error or reform, because by definition, they are supposed to be perfect.

So when moral or environmental questions are raised about the divine command to sacrifice animals, they cannot be dismissed by pointing fingers at humans.

Because this is not about human error. This is about a potential error in a divine decision.

And that changes everything.

Part 8: The Contradiction: Which Son Was to Be Sacrificed?

For 1,400 years, millions of animals have been slaughtered in the name of this tradition, yet Islamic theology has never been able to settle a basic historical fact: was the son chosen for sacrifice Isaac or Ishmael?

Early Islamic records reveal that during the first few centuries of Islam, the dominant view aligned with the Biblical account, that Isaac was the son bound for sacrifice. However, later theologians ran into a major geographic contradiction: historical records showed that Isaac had never set foot in Mecca. If Isaac never visited Mecca, how could Abraham have attempted to sacrifice him at the Kaaba on the day of Hajj?

This glaring contradiction was openly noted by classical Muslim commentators. For example, Imam Al-Qurtubi, in his commentary on Quran 37:102, wrote:

"The scholars have differed over who was commanded to be sacrificed. The majority held the view that it refers to Isaac... and this opinion is stronger in terms of transmissions from the Prophet, his companions, and the immediate followers (compared to the view of Ishmael). This first interpretation (that Isaac was the one to be sacrificed) is narrated from the Prophet, his companions, and the early scholars with far more chains of transmission."

It was only much later that Muslim apologists began aggressively pushing the narration that Ishmael was the intended sacrifice, working hard to erase any mention of Isaac from the story. This shift was necessary to forcefully tie the story to the geography of Mecca and the Kaaba, allowing them to claim that pilgrims sacrifice animals to re-enact this event.

This also raises another obvious question: if this ritual was so central to Abraham's legacy, why did none of the numerous Israelite prophets who followed him ever celebrate Eid al-Adha? Why is there absolutely no record in history or scripture of these prophets making annual pilgrimages to Mecca to perform animal sacrifices?

Lacking logical answers to these historical gaps, later apologists relied on a familiar tool: creating revisionist narratives to patch over the contradictions in the text. Stories were attributed to later narrators to firmly anchor the myth to Mecca.

The clearest sign of a myth is when it creates internal contradictions that undermine the credibility of the entire system over time. This ritual is not a healthy practice for young minds, nor is it a balanced economic model. It is simply the continuation of a primitive, wasteful regional custom kept alive by blind devotion.

Final Thought: An Invitation to Human Values

The critiques raised against Eid al-Adha are not born out of hatred for any group. They are rational questions rooted in universal human values, compassion for animals, responsible resource management, and finding effective ways to help those in need.

If we genuinely care about helping the vulnerable, protecting animals from unnecessary pain, and preserving our environment, we must be willing to look at these traditions with an open mind. Compassion, environmental care, and moderation are not the properties of any one belief system; they belong to all of humanity.