In the weeks leading up to Eid al-Adha, Basil, who is age 10, joins his father on an excursion to get a sheep. It is a tradition for Muslim families to slaughter a sheep for the annual Islamic celebration and to feed their family and community. The sheep sacrifice signifies Muslim obedience to Allah as the prophet Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Ismael, but then Allah replaced him with a sheep. 

Basil eats meat and has taken part in these celebrations before but was becoming more aware of the slaughtering process required to obtain the meat. On an empty plot a short drive from their home, his father talks to a shepherd he knows who brings forward three healthy-looking sheep. He tells Basil to choose a sheep to take home. The young animal lover is filled with excitement and chooses a large white and brown male. Basil senses something special about him.

On Eid al-Adha, the butcher usually arrives at sunrise and sets up his apparatus under a strong tree or an outside doorway. Knowing it is Eid, Basil wakes up from a restless sleep and rushes to find the sheep’s pen is empty! There is already a lot of activity in the house, as his aunts are chopping onions on the back patio. Outside the front door, he is paralysed at the sight of the sheep slaughter well underway. Seeing the dead animal that he formed a bond with traumatises young Basil, he goes into a panic immediately and is very distressed. His parents are entirely unprepared for his reaction but believe he will recover. His father thinks it will make him strong. Throughout lunch and dinner, Basil can’t bring himself to eat the meat which has been prepared but only eats the green salad, aubergine salad and rice. 

Gradually, Basil recovers from the experience but vows never to eat meat again, only eating fish occasionally. He tells his mother to make vegetarian versions of his favourites such as rijla, a purslane stew, fasulia, a haricot bean stew, and garah, a pumpkin stew. He only eats the cheese sambuxa or samosa, so his mother started making them filled with mixed vegetables as a meat alternative. Later, as a young teen, Basil travels to Western Sudan and learns about vegetarian um fit-fit, originally an animal innard stew, and the benefits of kawal, a fermented leaf stew with detoxifying properties. As Basil meets more vegetarian and vegan friends at university, they create a group to discuss the dependence of meat in our Muslim culture and how we can still practise our customs and traditions without killing animals. A point to consider.

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This story has been contributed from The Sudanese Kitchen project, established by Omer Al-Tijani Mohamed. The Sudanese Kitchen provides information on Sudanese food and drink to the English speaking world. This project specifically targets Sudanese youth, based in and outside of Sudan, who wish to incorporate traditional Sudanese cooking into their everyday lives, as well as non-Sudanese English speaking foodies eager to learn about Sudan’s relatively undiscovered (on an international scale) cuisine. For more information on The Sudanese Kitchen visit www.sudanesekitchen.com.