This year Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holy day marking Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son to God, fell on Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving. Muslims around the world celebrate the day, in situations good and hard, with feasts of ritually sacrificed animals, sheep, cows, goats. The New York Times Lens blog has a beautiful and sad photo essay on the festival in Iraq here.
Although Thanksgiving is a harvest feast, it's no real stretch to see it as a celebration honoring different acts of sacrifice. The Native Americans must have sacrificed certain distrust and fear to sit down with those awkward newcomers. And the settlers had given up their homeland and the comfort of familiarity in the faith that they would be taken care of, by God and by the land (and eventually by the new people they encountered.)
In any case, I'm happy that the two holidays lined up this year. It feels right, knowing that this week brought so many of us together in the goodness of sharing food with family and friends.
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