My name is Abdurrashid Al-Amin bin Muhammad Al-Mudhill Ansari, but everyone just calls me Abe. Literally translated from my native Arabic, Al-Mudhill means “The Giver of Dishonor”, one of Islam’s ninety-nine names for God. Now, it means so much more.

            Another portion of my name, Ansari, refers to the clan of people who welcomed the prophet Muhammad upon his arrival from Mecca to Medina. Muhammad showed the greatest respect for these people and appointed many of them high-ranking commanders and political leaders. The Ansars, my ancestors, were those people. Since then, nearly a thousand years ago, the Ansari name has been used as a distinction for generations after.

I am part of the first generation of my family to be born in America. My father arrived in this country some twenty-four years ago and since then, he and my mother have struggled to stay true to their Ansari roots. In hopes that I too would respect my family history, I was sent to a private Islamic grade school where I was to be given direct instruction based upon traditional practices and teachings, not unlike private Catholic schools. Also not unlike Catholic schools, few of the students even considered themselves religious. We tolerated the specially designed classes and dietetically adjusted lunches, but otherwise we frequently forgot the extra ‘l’ in Allah.

It’s a very common fallacy among white, Christian people to think that members of every other religion have something more to show for their beliefs. Christianity became the most popular religion in the world for one key reason: it’s convenient. Christians can get away with anything and still claim to be children of God and they know it. Unwed teenage mothers, drug dealers, they easily claim to put Jesus before everything else. Not me though, not Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists; we have standards so says the fallacy.

For a similar reason, I suspect, Christians seem compelled to make sure I don’t step out of line. I hear it every year, “Hey Abe, Ramadan is coming up right? Get ready for that fasting!”, as if I could walk up to my neighbor and say “Hey Chris, did you go to confession last week?”

That’s not to say, of course, that there aren’t fundamentalists out there, fasting like they should and rolling out their prayer mats three times a day. Fundamentalist Christians at least get to play bingo every Saturday. Being a devoted Muslim means having to travel to the most war-torn area of the world to walk around a giant stone cube with thousands of other filthy Muslims, followed by walking seven times back and forth between two sacred mountains. There’s some more walking, a head shaving, and then throwing some pebbles at a wall. This is what my people have done for generations, and now it is expected of me.

As tedious and painful it was living with my strictly Islamic family, at least this years Eid ul-Adha was memorable, no, unforgettable.

In a nutshell, Eid ul-Adha is a traditional Islamic festival which culminates in the sacrifice of a goat. Every direct family member is encouraged to attend and to share in the slaughtered beast. I will admit, goat meat is pretty delicious, not to mention the strange rush of awe in seeing an animal have its throat sliced open. I remember when we would scare the neighbors; “They’re performing satanic rituals!” they used to say. Now, we’re just an annoyance.

In past years, it was always father who sacrificed the goat, but he felt that this year I was ready to perform the sacred rite. It was weird enough having to sit through all of this without actually having to kill my dinner.

It’s a strange celebration for modern times. I’m sure that years ago in the homeland, it was very dramatic and mystical. Entire clans gathered in the desert waiting for the patriarchal father to carry out his prized livestock to be sliced apart on a large stone alter. These days, living in New Jersey and stabbing a goat tied up in a bungee cord in your backyard while standing next to a swing set, it’s not nearly as inspiring. I’m sure back then they used some sort of ceremonial sacrificing knife, but we just used a steak knife from the kitchen drawer. And, come to think of it, father was never too clear on where he got the goats from every year. “There’s a market in the city”, he would always say, but we were never allowed to go.

So there I was, getting ready to sacrifice our black market goat with a steak knife, having no idea what to do, when my father began with the offering statement. The goat squirmed and cried for help. My mother came and held it down, the neighborhood kids came to watch, and I was ready to piss myself.

“In the name of Allah and Allah is the greatest! Oh Allah, indeed this is from you and for you! Oh Allah accept from me!”

That was my queue.

I closed my eyes and plunged the knife into the innocent animals hide, or at least that’s what I had meant to do. Instead, I had stabbed through mother’s hand and pinned her to the beast of burden. It was about this time that I opened my eyes again.

The beast kicked and wailed and my mother did much of the same, but while the goat was able to free itself of its bungee cord constraint, Mom wasn’t so lucky. Still skewered to the animal, she was dragged across every inch of the backyard. Ironically, a New Jersey backyard features very little yard in comparison to the amount of concrete walkway. This was most unfortunate for my mother as her body grinded deeper and deeper into the harsh, grey surface, though now more red than grey. With every jump of the goat came the inevitable fall and the resulting scraping sound of my mothers flesh. I just stood and watched as my family attempted to wrangle the bleeding creature, wondering what would happen when it was all over.

The goat eventually grew tired and began to move in a slow gait. My father pulled the steak knife from mother’s hand and she limped inside with my aunt to call the hospital. Her once prized boubou was left little more than a mismatched collage of silk and blood.

“Why, Abdurrashid, must you curse every family get together with such –“

“Dishonor?” I said.

“Yes, and don’t act so damn pleased about it. You are an Ansari, does that mean nothing to you?”

I told him that no, in fact, it didn’t and that I refused to be a part of such a ridiculous concept as religion. I feel no merit or comfort in knowing that my life is all a part of some grand scheme or restricting myself to appease some jackass in the sky whom I’ve never even met, seen, or heard.

When I had finished my rant and had successfully made everyone uncomfortable, my father simply looked down at the ground, then at the knife still in his hand, and then at me. Before I could even think to move, he lunged at me, his eyes more red than the blood on the steak knife.

The stainless steel tip pierced straight through my chest into my left lung and missed my heart by a matter of centimeters. When the ambulance arrived to pick up my mother, the paramedics took me in as well on a second stretcher, the knife still protruding from my breast.

Moments later, father was arrested on the spot and is currently facing charges of attempted murder and assault. My mother was sent home a few days later after receiving thirty stitches in her hand and in several other areas, but doctors said I would require further observation to make sure every piece of the knife had been removed and that no severe damage had been sustained to my lungs or heart.

I only wish this is where my story ended.

Though the knife was successfully removed and my stitches had healed nicely, there was still a noticeable lack in my health. It began with a fever, so at first they thought an infection had begun to spread internally. I was placed me on a simple antibiotic, but the symptoms only became worse. Muscle pain, diarrhea, and a rash just to begin with.

I was told some days later that my mother had been readmitted with similar symptoms. After some extensive blood work, we were both diagnosed with leptospirosis, a common disease found in a wide range of animals. Sheep. Dogs. Mice.

Goats.

Normally, the bacterium is transmitted through tainted urine, but even then the chance of infection is very low. In the case of direct contact between blood, however, the risk increases dramatically.

An analysis of the knife confiscated by the police was found to have tested positive for the bacteria. Further investigation into the source of the infection led to a dingy marketplace on the south Jersey shore.

The market that my father always alluded to but we never saw, they found that it wasn’t properly licensed. The animals, they were never vaccinated. All of them were locked in small kennels, stacked atop each other like the bricks of some great pyramid, literally shitting and pissing over each other.

My mother, at her tender old age, couldn’t survive the infection. I was lucky enough to have survived, though I still require constant dialysis and detoxication.

Had Eid ul-Adha gone on as planned, we would have all eaten the goat meat. I never meant to save anyone, but here I am, my family’s sacrifice.