Charity for Livelihood

There are creative ways of arranging one’s qurbani that promote livelihoods for the poor and can become pivotal to the objective of self sufficiency in mutton. One may suggest a few:

• Give livelihood through your qurbani by pre-booking it. If you do two, give money for two pregnant sheep today only to farmers they will add two animals to their stock and share its progeny with you in next qurbani. Or you can choose to give the farmer money for four animals and get from next eid for two years home delivered. Or for five animals and you can get for three years. All these models have already been piloted from last few years and you can tie up with any farmer you know. We would be glad to facilitate your meetings with progressive farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations to facilitate this.
• Get your share booked one year before and for the whole year you will be credited reward of sadaqa of the whole amount on daily basis till the time of qurbani and you will get the share on lesser price. What a deal with God that one gets reward of doing sadaqah of 8000x350=2800000 for the year and every day three things get ensured from God – one will not die a bad death, say in an accident, healing and insurance against evil of every day. One may choose to do daily sadaqah of say Rs one to two for oneself or Rs 10 on behalf of one’s family for the farmer one has chosen to empower. Some of us have been adopting orphans, we may extend it to adopting a farmer today only. Just help him purchase two female sheep, preferably pregnant or soon getting pregnant and gift one to him wholly and create partnership agreement for the second one so that you can get at least three animals for three years from her progeny. Such tie ups are already in place and successfully getting executed from last many years. Begin today this partnership and see how indeed there is barakah.
• In many areas of civil line or hearts of some towns it may be difficult to find even one truly deserving poor whom one can give qurbani share to and there are cases where families do qurbani of many animals, even a dozen. Where does this huge meat mass end up? If the poor received their share they will not have to procure any meat for regular weekly or fortnightly use or for marriage assistance. Somehow their share gets converted to that of relatives or neighbours or accumulated in freezers. Let us empty freezers today only and send meat to the deserving or store in their name and give them later through meat bank. Did you create a meat bank in your area?
• Every farmer rearing sheep or goat will have destiny changed if we choose to prebook next year’s qurbani or mutton requirements for functions or routine consumption. Will you hesitate or do it today only? Exercise your due diligence in choosing a company or farmer you tie up with for investing in farming and remember that it is a blessed activity for which barakah is promised by the Holy Prophet. Each one of us who does qurbani can, from today, work on owning sheep/goat farm or at least, as second best choice, share in sheep/goat farm so that qurbani animal can be purchased on much discounted price and home delivered and reared on our behalf. In fact both material and spiritual returns are guaranteed for investment in sheep rearing by the Prophet of God (SAW) who described sheep/goat as believer’s best wealth in the last days. Own a sheep today, in farmer’s farm if you can’t do it in your own space at home and taste the blessings. The Prophet (SAW) commanded or encouraged us to rear sheep/goat emphasizing the blessings in this activity.
• I have vacillated about Hanafite and other positions on need for individual qurbani or by head of family and have now concluded that the discomfort about the former arises by failure to do qurbani as intended and distribute the meat throughout year or preserve it through the use of various technologies for even longer use. Let everyone who is capable of doing qurbani do it, and, by virtue of proper preservation, sponsor one meat card/coupon that allows a kg of meat to be given free to a needy person every month or support of 12kg meat for marriage assistance. We can do several things to preserve meat – sun dry, freeze/chill, make pickle, store after boiling, densely pack and store under a layer of oil. Meat Banks can be carved from deep freezers of one hundred litres or its multiples in every panchayat or marriage hall or central mosque of a village or colony.

Some wquestions

• Did we get a bigger animal to show off when smaller younger animals taste better and yield more meat of better quality?
• Have we used heads and feet and offal or just threw them away or sent them away to beggars who have mostly wasted them?

Concluding Reflections

The following measures would retrieve compassion and mercy   as originally embodied in the practice of sacrifice.

1) For prioritizing the poor/needy get proper survey done of recipient beforehand and don’t give to professional beggars and social parasites who beg for meat and heads or feet and do nothing to ensure next year they do qurbani and not beg share from qurbani. We shouldn’t give those who do qurbani themselves or give bigger pieces except to the poor

2) We liaison with one another or  with Mohalla Committee for best distribution to most deserving.

3) Issue meat cards of different types – gold, silver and bronze – to deserving families for a year only. Monitor how the beneficiary family worked to uplift itself in the year for coming out if needy status and then consider further support. Don’t give meat to those who beg for it. Beggars are real culprits. There are cases of meat beggars working hand in glove with well fed people or hoteliers or some people who store this collected meat by beggars and consume out of it. Meat card will ration as per need and issue as per progress report on livelihood unit. Meat can be a bait for following strict road to empowerment. Anyone who asks for head and feet has to be scrutinized if he isn’t habitual.

Post Script. Compared to the pain and violence of age, early death for a living organism from bacteria to sheep is an insurance against violence. A life of love and care is choosing to sacrifice one’s self for the other. We need to know that it is ultimately animal in us that is to be sacrificed and saints are not great meat eaters. Caliph Umar reprimanded those who turned up frequently to meat shops. Buddhists consume meat slaughtered by others. Although Kashmiri Saivism has invested theology and mysticism in meat eating, it has also its saints like Lakshman joo avoiding meat. Lust for meat and its consequences on one’s spiritual progress need to be noted. Jain view on animal sacrifice and ahimsa needs to be put in dialogue with other non-Semitic and Semitic views to get more nuanced picture.

It is universally granted that we must not inflict suffering. Now the precise debate is on what constitutes inflicting suffering or whether killing an animal for human consumption ethically problematic. Although from Gandhi to Singer we find one strand of thought on vegetarianism that is now embraced much widely, it is to be noted that prophets and saints across traditions have mostly been non vegetarian. Even if we leave aside theologies, environmental reasons dictate we decrease meat eating.

Let us not consume more meat than we can give to the poor through qurbani and aqiqah or other meat donations. If all who are required or encouraged to do qurbani, the poor would get a piece of meat daily. So would those who do qurbani. Choose what you want.