QUETTA: Sufi Khalid Mehmood sat on a crowded street in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, sparks flying around his fingers as he sharpened a large knife against a giant grinding stone.
The scene is from Tak Tak Gali, the largest steel and metal market in Quetta, where steel masons place wheel grinding machines and display glistening knives of all shapes and sizes outside their shops to attract customers visiting the bazaar ahead of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Many Muslims celebrate the four-day feast by ritually slaughtering livestock and distributing the meat among family, friends and the poor, creating a large market not just for animals and butchers but also for knives and knife sharpeners.
“A lot of people are bringing old tools [for sharpening] because butchers ask for Rs6,000 [$21] for slaughtering a small goat on the first day [of Eid]. Hence, people say it is a Sunnah to slaughter sacrificial animals with their own hands and it is rewarding as well,” Mehmood, who has been in the business for the last 35 years, told Arab News.
A man holds a cleaver with sharp edges inside a shop in Quetta Pakistan on June 26, 2023. (AN Photo)
Since the Eid Al-Adha moon was sighted last week and the first day of Eid announced for Thursday, the experienced mason and hundreds of others like him in Tak Taki Gali have been working 18-hour work days.
“For the last five days, we have been sharpening 200 sets of knives daily,” Mehmood said, adding that customers came to the market from far off districts like Khuzdar, Chaman, Kalat and Mastung since knife sharpening services were not available in those areas.
“We are so overburdened with the work of [sharpening] used knives that we have been closing the shop at 2:30am, 3am, 4am daily.”
Muhammad Hamza , a 29-year-old customer, said he had come to get his knife sharpened as it was advised in Islam that tools “must be so sharp that the animal is slaughtered in a second and doesn’t feel any pain, any misery.”
Javed Haider, 62, who had brought his knives for sharpening at Tak Tak Gali, also said he did not like to rely on butchers but carried out the sacrificial ritual with his own hands with the help of other male family members. He said several different types of knives were required in the process.
“One which is smaller in size which the butcher uses to remove the hide [of the animal]. Then, another knife is used for slaughtering. Then, there’s a cleaver for breaking the bones and another knife is used for chopping [the animal] into pieces of meat. Hence, every knife has its own role.”
Javed Haider, a local resident looks for a sharpened knife for the annual Muslim festival Eid ul Adha in Quetta Pakistan on June 26, 2023. (AN Photo)
But while there is demand of new knives and for sharpening old ones, customers also complained of unusually high prices this year, as the country faces soaring inflation, which rose to 37.97 percent in May, a national record.
“The price of new knives has increased up to 15 percent because in the previous year, a new set of knives was Rs3,500 ($12.25) but for this year, the price has grown up to Rs4.500 ($15.76),” Hamza, the young customer, said, saying the rate for sharpening had also gone up.
Mehmood the mason defended the price hikes, saying inflation was not only affecting customers but businesses also.
“Keeping in view inflation, we have increased by only 20 rupees the price for sharpening used knives,” he said.
“But for new knife sets, we are compelled to enhance the prices because we purchase them at increased prices ourselves.”
