KARACHI: Muslims in Pakistan crowded mosques and prayer grounds across the country to offer prayers and sacrifice goats and cows for Eid Al-Adha holiday on Saturday, marking the second major religious festival of Islam.
Security was tight, with authorities on guard from any possible attack by religious extremists who have carried out bombings across the country in recent years.
“Today, we are here to offer Eid prayers,” said worshipper Saleem Ahmed at a ceremony in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. “The security arrangements were very good. May Allah approve our prayers.”
Eid Al-Adha commemorates the Qur’anic tale of the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to Allah, before Allah replaced the son with a ram to be sacrificed instead. A similar story involving Abraham is recounted in the holy books of Judaism and Christianity.
It is tradition for those who can afford it to sacrifice domestic animals as a symbol of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son.
The result is a booming pre-holiday trade in goats, cows and sheep. In Pakistan alone, nearly 10 million animals, worth more than $3 billion, are slaughtered during the two days of Eid Al-Adha, according to the Pakistan Tanners’ Association.
“We are presenting sacrifices to follow the path of the prophet Abraham. We should not forget our poor and needy Muslim brethren on this occasion,” Karachi resident Mohamad Muzammil said at the prayer ground where cows and goats were being slaughtered.
Eid Al-Adha marks the end of an annual Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, and should be undertaken by every Muslim who can afford to do so.
With a population of about 208 million people, Pakistan is the sixth most-populous country in the world, and has the second largest Muslim population after Indonesia. About 97 percent of Pakistanis are Muslims.
With prayer, sacrifices, Pakistani Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Adha
With prayer, sacrifices, Pakistani Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Adha
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
