Mushtarakah / Ijtamai Qurbani (Badi Qurbani)

Background:

Qurbani (sacrifice) is mandatory for every sahib-e-nisaab; largely the person who’s eligible to pay the Zakat. Now, even if we are capable of affording the cost of lamb / goat sacrifice, there are certain elements which make it a little challenging. Starting with unavailability and unreliability of butcher; people residing in flats find it difficult to get adequate space where they can offer qurbani; less number of people who can help you in offering the qurbani and distributing the meat to the needy people. These are general limitations, and we have no choice but to live with them. This is where mushtarakah / ijtamai qurbani comes into the picture where 7 people can participate and offer sacrifice of one bigger animal. This qurbani is generally offered by some organizations on our behalf.

What you need to know

There are certain criteria and meeting them is extremely necessary:

• The animal should be at least 2 years old
• The animal should have all the body parts intact, including horns
• All 7 contributions should come from halal income
• All the contributing members should have the sole intention of Sacrifice, and not just obtaining the meat J
• The meat should however be distributed EQUALLY among all participants

What MIGHT happen

Most of us generally pay the amount to the organizations who offer to sacrifice the animal on our behalf and we remain assured. With all due respect to all those organizations who take utmost care in offering sacrifice, I would still take liberty to say that there have been misses and are reported quite often.

• Quite a few times it is seen that the animal is not 2 years old.
• It is also seen that meat is not distributed equally, meaning—meat of one specific animal should be distributed equally and only to those who participated in it; however what is generally seen that the meat of all the sacrificed animals are mixed together and then distributed as per choice—this is not correct.
• Butchers take away the skin (khaal) as a part of their compensation, this is completely unacceptable.
• It is also observed that these “counters” for collecting the contribution money are open till Asr till 3^rd day of Eid i.e. 12^th Dhul Hijjah (or Zil Hajj)—this takes away the entire credibility whether the sacrifices are being offered at all or not.

What we can do

We contribute for a part or two and rely on them to arrange for remaining 5 participants, and remain assured that everything would be alright. This is where things may go wrong.

• Talk to your 5-6 other like-minded friends / relatives who are planning to take part in mushtarakah qurbani and make sure your group own the entire animal.
• Make sure that the intention is to make sacrifice for the sake of Allah and not the intention of just obtaining the meat.
• Go to the organization well in advance and ask them the show the animal they are going to sacrifice on your behalf. Verify if the animal looks 2 years old. Get it marked.
• Insist on sacrificing the animal yourself; of-course in their / government designated area.
• Divide the meat equally among all.
• Make sure that you donate the skin to eligible people, rather than the Butcher taking it away.

What triggered this blog

This year, since we had all 7 contributions, I happened to visit the “Kamela”, the government slaughter house, for sacrificing the animal myself—and what I saw was not very convincing, though it was under observation of so-called “zimmedar” people. I realized it’s now my duty to share what I feel, that’s how this unusual blog came up.