Faiz's Sorrow, Kierkegaard's Doubt: Did Kashmir Miss The Point Of Eid?

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
A sheep seller weighs a sacrificial animal in Srinagar | KO File Photo By Abid Bhat

By Syed Eesar Mehdi

Last week, Eid ul Azha drifted through Kashmir, a valley where faith weaves with whispers of ancient winds. Sacrifice, a cry torn from comfort's embrace, arches over the chasm, tying the fleeting to the forever.

Imagine sheep trembling in Srinagar's shadow, ropes taut, knives glinting under a sky soft as a sigh. What sang in this Feast of Sacrifice?

Ibrahim's act lingered, his heart a quivering flame, climbing a mountain, blade in hand, his son a step behind, offered to the unseen.

Kashmir hummed alive. Over 45,000 animals, a butcher from Budgam swore, bowed to the blade, their flesh parted: a share for kin, a share for neighbours, a share for the poor.

Read Also Shopian Prepares for Key Govt Initiative to Empower Tribal Communities Gaming Apps Are Trapping Kashmiri Teens in Real Debt

The Qur'an murmurs the miracle. Not the ram that spared Ismail, but Ibrahim's pulse, racing to obey. What do we yield?

Rumi, voice of the heart, wondered why we crawl, wings folded, born to soar.

In Anantnag, laughter spilled, children in bright threads darted through lanes, while hands in Shopian stretched mutton to the hungry. 12,000 gifts, an elder reckoned.

Had the fire cooled, dulled to a murmur of habit?

Sacrifice scorns the safe, laughs at ease. Not blood alone, but will: a heart laid bare to the vast. Did we, in Kashmir, shake like Ibrahim?

Sheep quivered, eyes wide as moons, pleading from Baramulla to Kulgam. Their bleats, a tongue of betrayal, echoed Kierkegaard's vision of Abraham, riding home, sorrow a silent rider. No tales for sheep, only ropes, only death draped in tradition's cloak. Do we test love's depth, or weigh our wallets?

In this valley, the chant turned: not what we'd surrender, but what we'd spend.

Eid ul Azha, they sing, teaches yielding. Yet routine carves it hollow. Pride bloomed in Kashmir, thicker than any goat, as youth flashed knives for eyes online, not heaven's gaze.

The blade, once a sacred arc, cut for applause. Kierkegaard dreamed faith a tempest, a leap where obedience dances with madness. Had we, by Dal Lake's ripple, swapped storm for still?

Faiz Ahmed Faiz wept: after the slaughter, sorrow lingers. Sorrow clung, a silent guest, as meat's scent wafted, adhan soaring over Hazratbal.

Generosity flowed-8,000 homes fed, Sopore's counters said-but giving, heartless, trades, never redeems.

Sheep, innocent of verse, shivered beneath Kashmir's sun, fear their only song. Thinkers turn away; poets weave odes, yet blood pools. Was Ibrahim's step faith or frenzy?

Kierkegaard named it a divine pause, right and wrong unmoored. Claim that, and we must kneel to its ache. Don't slay for the day's dawn. Slay because the impossible stares back, like Ibrahim. Or spare them, life brighter than a faded echo.

Rumi begged us cut pride, not flesh. In Kashmir, pride stood, unbloodied, as sheep fell, the rite a whisper without tremble.

Once, sacrifice wove tribes to eternity, blood a vow. Where's our thread? A fleeting prayer, a shared word?

From Habbakadal to Kulgam, meat's aroma rose, but did it lift like incense, or dull our souls?

Sartre spurned heaven's call, swore we're free, bound to choose, obedience a betrayal. He never bled for the hidden. Ibrahim did. Sheep do. Yet a spark glows.

A child, eyes on a goat's fall in Eidgah, asks why. That cry, fragile, fierce, is Eid-certainty bleeds, tradition cracks. Faith, Kierkegaard knew, storms, never rests.

Kashmir's sheep, quaking, turned sacred, a glass to our will, our trial. No choice theirs, but fear made them true. Faiz's sorrow twined faith, two streams in the valley's pulse.

Here, Eid wasn't flesh or rite. It was the mountain-scaling it, love heavy, a knife dreaded. Did we quiver?

• Dr Syed Eesar Mehdi is a Research Fellow at International Centre for Peace Studies, New Delhi, India. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached @ [email protected]

MENAFN10062025000215011059ID1109656062