On December 8 we will celebrate another Eid el-Adha, the Big Feast or the Feast of Sacrifice. Sharm will be crowded by Cairoens. Many New Sharmers do not know much about the Islamic feasts. Following what you should know.

It takes place approximatedly seventy days after the Eid el-Fitr at the end of the month of Ramadan, The Eid el-Adha coincides with the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca; the culmination of the pilgrimage, the Day of Arafat, is the day before the Eid. This is when the pilgrims spend the day in prayer and devotion on Mt. Arafat, where the Prophet Mohammed delivered his last sermon.

The Eid el-Adha is a celebration of the obedience to God shown by the Prophet Ibrahim because he was ready to sacrifice his firstborn son when asked. Ibrahim was rewarded for being a true believer when a sheep appeared in the place of Ismail, and it was sacrificed instead. For this reason, Moslems slaughter either a sheep, or if they are able to afford it, a cow, to commemorate Ibrahim's trust in God. The family only keeps a third of the meat, another third is for relatives, and the rest is distributed to the poor.

If people have space to keep an animal, they will buy their sheep or cow well before the Eid in order to fatten it up, so you may hear bleating and mooing in your neighborhood in the days leading up to the Eid. Usually people make arrangements with their butcher to come and slaughter the animal, but you will also see men going through the streets yelling out "gazzar", butcher, hoping to be hired. Another thing you might notice after the Eid, if you drive along Magra el-Oyoun Street next to the Aqueduct, are the towering wooden racks of drying sheepskins, because this is the neighborhood of the tanners.

There is a special dawn prayer on the morning of the first day of the Eid. If you live near a mosque with a microphone, you will hear the congregation reciting over and over again: "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, la illah il Allah" (God is great, God is great. There is no god but God). Then people return home for a special early breakfast of a dish called "fatta", which consists of meat and rice with sauce and bread soaked in broth. Throughout the four days of the Eid relatives all visit each other, and adults, particularly the uncles of the family, give the children gifts of money.

Everyone wishes everyone else a happy Eid with the expression 'kulla sana wa inta tayyib" to a male, and "kulla sana wa inti tayyiba" for a female, In fact, this greeting can be used for any holiday! You may also hear people say "Eid mubarak", meaning "blessed Eid".