Eid Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, honours Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael on the order of Allah, who according to Islamic tradition provided a lamb in the boy’s place.
In Syria, worshippers emerged from Eid Al-Adha prayers Sunday morning to rally against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime despite a protest crackdown the UN says has killed at least 3,000 people since March.
And the security forces shot dead another four civilians Sunday, including three in the flashpoint central city of Homs, and another in Hama further to the north, according to human rights activists.
The latest bloodshed came as Syrian state radio reported that Assad himself attended Al-Nur mosque in the northern town of Raqqa for morning prayers to mark the Muslim holy day.
In Gaza City, Ismail Haniya, addressed worshippers at the Palestine Mosque, and hailed the three-day feast as the “Eid of freedom” for the Arab world.
“On this blessed day, we call our Eid the Eid of Freedom,” he said. “It is the Eid of Freedom for Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and all the peoples who triumphed over tyranny. “The people remade the glory of their civilisation after years of political prison, loss and dependence,” he added.
Residents of the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu marked the Muslim feast amid fears and tears after deadly attacks claimed by rebels killed at least 150 people.
In Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed up to eight people, mostly civilians, as they returned from Eid al-Adha prayers at a mosque in the northern city of Baghlan.
And in Iraq, four bombs exploded in Baghdad’s Shorjah market, killing at least one person and wounding eight, security officials said.
The blasts came despite beefed up security for the festival around mosques, parks and other public areas, including a 32,000-strong force in the central Shiite shrine city of Najaf. In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, Eid Al-Adha was marked by all-night prayer, the sacrifice of goats and cows and family meals of rice cakes and meat dishes.
In keeping with tradition, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono offered a 1.2-tonne cow for sacrifice after prayers at Jakarta’s Istiqlal mosque, which is to slaughter 60 cows and 27 goats for meat to be distributed to 10,000 people.
Eid Al-Adha will be held Monday in some parts of the Muslim world including Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where at least eight people died as tens of millions poured out of cities for a five-day holiday triggered by the feast.
