The Significance of Saddam's Slaughter on the Muslim Day of Sacrifice

Today is Eid al Adha, one of Islam's two major holidays, and early in the morning, before most Arabs in the Middle East woke up for the Eid prayers, Saddam Hussein, the deposed president of Iraq, is executed by hanging.

On the Festival of the Sacrifice! Eid al Adha literally means 'The Festival of the Sacrifice', and it commemorates the time Prophet Abraham was about to sacrifice his own son in obedience to God. After Abraham passed the trial, he slaughtered a ram instead and his son was saved.

The Eid comes at the end of the Hajj rituals, when millions of Muslims congregate in Mecca for pilgrimage, and one of the major aspects of Eid al Adha is the slaughter of cattle and sharing the meat with family and the poor.

So why is this significant? Well, Eid is a day of celebration for Muslims the world over. During the Hajj period and Eid, sanctity of life is paramount. Pilgrims aren't even allowed to swat a fly, not to kill any living thing, until the rites are over, symbolically ended by sacrificing a sheep or other cattle, and the shaving of the head. During this time also, Muslims the world over would not execute or kill even the most heinous criminals, at least until the holiday period is over.

And in comes the big insult. Saddam Hussein, tried in a kangaroo court, without a fair trial, is sentenced to death, and this is carried out in Muslims' Festival of Sacrifice. Mass protests against the runaway execution are now erupting in Iraq, in places like Najaf, Mosul and Ramadi. People are livid that on this day of celebration, they are waking up to the news that the American-imposed government has murdered their ex-leader.

Don't get me wrong, Saddam Hussein is implicated in many crimes, but even the worst criminals deserve a fair trial, and a dignified end. Many Muslims are angry over what the US and its puppet Iraqi court/government surely would have known to be a sensitive time to murder Saddam Hussein. In secret, hushed up, in an undisclosed location, he is whisked away, no time to lose, and now Muslims are watching al Jazeera on the morning of Eid, watching a rope go around Hussein's neck. He refuses to be hooded, so his executioners, themselves dressed in ski masks, wrap his hood around his neck. The cameras show the hole in the wooden floor that he will soon descend. Then the film cuts and loops, and you watch the scene again, never seeing it to its end, or to Saddam's end.

The irony of Saddam's trial is that it revealed many of the accusations against him as simply that, accusations. The man who was inflated into the Monster Hussein, had witness after witness come in to try to prove his crimes, only for them to admit under cross-examination that they in fact did not see or hear anything directly, but relied on hearsay. His trial actually exonerated him of many of the crimes associated to him, and I suspect there were many areas not even approached in his trial because the evidence would lead to US and UK backing and complicity back when Iraq was 'America's ally'. Once the kangaroo court stuck something on him, he was rushed to his execution, a sacrifice on the altar of war, on the Festival of Sacrifice.

I could imagine the Qabbalists who chose the date for the murder to be chuckling right now. Saddam, considered the Haman of our time by many Zionist warmongers, was given the ultimatum to comply to impossible demands on the eve of Purim 2003, then his country was invaded. Purim is the Judaic festival of revenge against Israel's mortal enemies. And now Haman is put to death by Zion's puppets on the Festival of Sacrifice.

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Update: Mainstream Media Takes Note of Timing of Saddam's Execution

From AFP’s ‘Timing of Saddam execution risks Arab backlash: analysts’:

The ousted strongman was executed in Baghdad at dawn on Saturday as Muslims began celebrating the Eid al-Adha...

Grainy footage of a grey-bearded and calm-looking Saddam being prepared for the gallows was aired on Iraqi state television and re-broadcast across the Arab world.

"Saddam was being dragged away like he was the sheep waiting to be slaughtered," said Emad Gad, researcher with the Cairo-based Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies.

"The main issue here is that the execution took place on the morning of the Eid al-Adha," Gad told AFP. "This will stir anger and humiliation in people, whether they supported him or not.

"The pictures will re-create the anger and frustration among a large part of the Arab masses," Khatib told AFP.

"Once more, ordinary Arabs felt that there is a conspiracy against their symbols."

The timing of the execution "did not take into consideration the feelings of Muslims and the sanctity of this day which represents amnesty and forgiveness," Hadidi said.

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Submitted by MonkeyZerg on Sat, 2006-12-30 12:04

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