MOLI VIEW™

Here's another holiday to add to this season's pileup of Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa (and for fans of the defunct show The OC, of course, Chrismukkah): Eid-ul-Adha. This holiday occurs according to the Islamic calendar, so it does not always fall in late December — but this year and last it's been part of the holiday rush.

This Festival of Sacrifice marks the third day of the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Eid commemorates the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for Allah — and the Almighty's last-minute gift of a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice in his son's place.

Christians and Jews might recognize this parable from their own holy books. Language lovers will appreciate this as the origin of the phrase "sacrificial lamb." Muslims, however, have taken the story a bit more literally: Eid-ul-Adha is typically celebrated by sacrificing a lamb, goat, or cow and sharing the meat with the less fortunate.

For the past three years, the Muslim American Society — a nationwide nonprofit active in charitable and human rights causes — has made the holiday the occasion for a national food drive to benefit the nation's poor, regardless of faith. Celebrants can purchase a whole goat or sheep, or a share in a cow, for $120 each. The meat is sacrificed during the holiday according to Muslim custom, then sent to a meat processing plant (according to American custom), frozen, and finally shipped out to MAS chapters across the country for distribution to the poor in January 2008.

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