Indian Muslims mark Eid with a muted tone

This week, Muslims from Belarus to Indonesia are celebrating the holiday Eid al-Adha, in which an animal — typically a cow, goat, or sheep — is slaughtered to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God. A portion of the meat is distributed to the poor.

In India this year, however, Eid is taking a largely quiet tone, the Washington Post reports, in respect for those victimized in late November’s terrorist siege of Mumbai. Leaders of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques requested the country’s 140 million Muslims — about 13 percent of the population — to wear black bands on their shoulders to show solidarity. Muslim leaders have also requested that cows not be slaughtered in order to show sensitivity to Hindu beliefs against killing cows.

Indian Muslims — some photographed praying Dec. 9 at the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi, in the image above — for the most part seek to distance themselves from the allegedly Islamist terrorists who attacked Mumbai, and they have drawn attention to the fact that about one third of the 171 victims killed were Muslims. Additionally, Muslim leaders have refused to permit the nine terrorists killed during the siege to be buried in Islamic cemeteries.

“It’s not a happy Eid,” Ahsaan Qureshi, a famous Indian comic, told the Post.

Photo: MANPREET ROMANA/AFP/Getty Images