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Prioritize Indonesian Disaster Victims for Idul Adha, Fatwa Says
Dessy Sagita | November 10, 2010

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Jakarta. The country’s second-largest Islamic organization has called on Muslims to forgo the traditional animal sacrifice for next week’s Idul Adha holiday, and instead donate the money to help the victims of recent natural disasters.

Idul Adha, which according to the government will fall on Wednesday, is traditionally marked by Muslim communities around the world with a qurban ritual, where an animal — usually a cow, buffalo or goat — is slaughtered and the meat distributed to the poor.

But a fatwa, or religious edit, issued by Muhammadiyah on Wednesday said Muslims should consider using the money they would normally spend on the qurban to help relief efforts in Yogyakarta and the Mentawai Islands.

“At a time like this, Muslims should prioritize — and it would be better if they prioritized helping disaster victims first,” said Yunahar Ilyas, from the organization’s fatwa body.

Qurban usually costs between Rp 1 million and Rp 5 million ($110 to $560), depending on the animal being slaughtered.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of animals are bought for the holiday.

Yunahar said notices about the edict had been sent to Muhammadiyah branches across the country, and the organization’s special committee in charge of qurban events had been asked to contact those who had contributed money to ask them to instead make donations.

“People who have given their money will be given two options: to perform both the qurban and donate money for disaster victims, or choose only one of them,” he said.

“With the latter, we hope that they will choose to donate to disaster victims. But this is only a recommendation; we can’t force people to choose that.”

Umar Shihab, the chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), said that although it had never specifically discussed the issue, he supported Muhammadiyah’s effort. “In Islam, qurban is sunnah, or tradition; it’s not obligatory,” he said.

“Qurban will only be able to provide poor people with meat, but the [disaster] victims need more than that; they need clothes, medicine and other basics.”