As much hatred as I have for radical Islam, I still consider myself fairly ignorant about the religion in general. Therefore, I still have faith in the "religion of peace" description, co-Abrahamic faith and all of that good stuff that will eventually win out in the end.

Just to show my ignorance, even after everything I've read about the hajj and Eid al-Adha this week, I thought Muslims were commemorating the potential sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. It turns out that at least part of Islam teaches that it was not Isaac under the knife, but Ishmael and that the Jews surreptitiously changed the Old Testament so that they could claim the covenant with G-d given to Abraham's son.

Here's on of the more in-depth defenses I saw from the standpoint of Islam. If you just "google" Isaac and Ishmael you'll find a lot more.

Does everyone who follows Islam think that the Jews stole what was rightfully theirs and lied to cover it up?

Now that my anger and disgust is back up - let's read about how some Palestinians "celebrate" this holiday (the attached photo is presented with the story but I don't know that it's from the event described below):

The holiday commemorates the story from the Quran when God told Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith. As Ibrahim raises the knife to carry out the command, God replaces the child with a sheep, which Ibrahim slaughters instead. In the Quran, Ibrahim is about to sacrifice his son Ishmael. The same story in the Bible has the man, known as Abraham, about to sacrifice another son, Isaac.

Muslims throughout the world slaughter a cow, camel or sheep to mark the feast. Freshly killed animals hung upside down from doorways across Gaza on Sunday so the blood could drain out. Some men carried plastic bags filled with meat.

In past years, Baha Nakip, 36, would slaughter a sheep. But this year, he said he and five friends each pitched in $245 to buy the cow to have more meat.

They tied it up to a post in an empty garage. Ashraf Abu Karish, a local butcher the men hired for $65, circled the frightened animal, occasionally jabbing it in the neck with a small, sharp knife.

About 20 friends, family and small children huddled in a doorway to watch - and Nakip pulled out his video camera to tape - as the cow struggled and slipped in its own blood before dropping dead.

Karish hoped to slaughter five or six cows by the end of the day, with each one taking about one and a half hours.

Nice



Good for a laugh - A Palestinian boy laughs, backdropped by handprints made by youths from the blood of a freshly slaughtered sheep, on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha