The Ram at Mina and the Sacrifice the Feast Reenacts

Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, falls on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah by the tabular calendar this rule uses, at the climax of the Hajj pilgrimage rites performed at Mina outside Mecca. Its textual basis is the Quranic account of Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, a command that is stayed at the last moment when a ram is provided in the son's place. Islamic tradition names the son as Ismail, which is where the Quranic account diverges from the Genesis version of the same story read in Judaism and Christianity, where the son is Isaac.

The feast is marked by qurbani, the ritual sacrifice of a permitted animal, with the meat traditionally divided in thirds among the household, relatives and friends, and the poor, a distribution pattern meant to make the sacrifice a communal act of charity rather than a private one. For pilgrims at Mina the sacrifice sits inside the wider sequence of Hajj rites, alongside the standing at Arafat the day before and the stoning of the pillars, while for the much larger number of Muslims marking the feast away from Mecca it stands alone as the year's second major festival after Eid al-Fitr, observed with communal prayer, feasting and the same charitable distribution wherever the animal is offered.