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| Al Aqsa Mosque or people recognize it as Masjid Menara Kudus, in 1940 (source: Tropenmuseum) |
Hello World!
Happy Iedul Adha all! Yesterday we celebrated one’s of the holy day of a
moslem, the symbol of sacrifice and togetherness.
During Iedul Adha, one things is important, that is qurban (sacrifice) itself, which in the holy Koran, we recognize
that phopret Ibrahim (Abraham) had a
recurring dream, in which Allah SWT was
commanding him to offer his son, Ismail (Ishmael)
as a sacrifice. Ibrahim felt so confuse whether he want to obey the God orders,
but there’s no father in the world who have his heart to sacrificing his dear
son. But later when Ibrahim asked Ismail
about this, Ismail replied, “ Insha Allah
(God willingness), you’ll find me to be patient, just do what the Allah asked to you father”. After all Ibrahim realize orders to
sacrificing his son, he blindfold his eyes when he cut Ismail throat. When he cut Ishmael's throat and removed the
blindfold, he was surprised when found Ismail
was unharmed and and still alive! But he found a dead sheep which was
slaughtered. Abraham had passed the test by his willingness to carry out Allah
SWT order. Since that day, all the moslem who’ve been capable are have a duty
to slaughter a cattle (cow, goat, sheep, camel, ram, buffalo) during Iedul Adha
day, then later distributed to the poor people. That’s the origin of Iedul
Adha, but I wanna share about the unique tradition in Kudus city, a city to the
east of Semarang about this day.
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| The story teller, Hasan, experted about the story about early Islam in Java |
I got this story from my friends who comin’ from there named Hasan Anwar,
he explain me about, why the Kudus people are forbidden to use cow as their
qurban? Even not only on that celebration, we almost couldn’t find any soto, kind
of Javanese soup, which using cow meat in Kudus, because they changed it with
buffalo meat. So, whats the reason behind it?
Hasan, told me that its just because of Sunan Kudus, the pseudonym of
Jaffar Shadiq, the early Islam missionary in Java who lived in Kudus, forbid
the people to slaughtering cow, in order to respect the Hindu’s people, who at
that time are the majority in Java island. One day, he received a cow coming
from the merchant from India. The people are so curious when the cow is
tethered in front of Sunan Kudus house. The hindu’s people want to know what
will Sunan Kudus do, for the holy animal according to their belief. The number
of people gathered increasing, both of the Hindu’s and Muslim’s, who want to prevented, if any trouble happened to the
Sunan Kudus. Then Sunan Kudus come out from his house and said, “Brothers and
sisters! My beloved people, I’ll not do any danger to this cow, and I beg u not
to hurt even slaughter the cow, because in my childhood this animal once saved
my life, its nursing me when I was suffering due to really bad thirst. Even in
our Koran, there’s a surah (chapter)
using the name of this animal, called Al
Baqarah (Baqarah: female cow). ”
Then the people are so excited with what the Sunan Kudus said. Its proof
them about the high tolerance of moslem people. Even after that a lots of
people converted to Islam, and Sunan Kudus according to the folkstale, received
a granted, there’s a building from the local religious leader, where later he renovated
it and nowadays become what we recognize as Masjid
Menara Kudus. Most of the building
carried the Hindu’s architecture, dominated with the red bricks structure. Its
always remind me about , the beauty of harmonism.
Well, until now, Kudus people still obeys the Sunan Kudus order not to
slaughtering cow. Every Iedul Adha day, there’s no cow is slaughtered, only
goat, sheep, and buffalo. Even Hasan’s added, “once there’s a kampong, break
the rule, they slaughter the cow and later all of them were ill.” Believe it or
not ;)
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