Muslim Rite of Sacrifice Collides with Law

December 21, 2007

Author: Richard Fausset

Source: Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-slaughter21dec21,1,3812919.story?ctrack=8&cset=true

PRINCETON, N.C. -- For six years, it has been a tradition for Muslims in the Research Triangle: After morning services on the first day of Eid al-Adha -- the "festival of sacrifice" -- scores of families leave the tweedy environs of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and head toward an obscure plot of land on a two-lane country road.

They come to visit Eddie Rowe, a hog farmer.

The children typically run around among Rowe's loose chickens. The women prepare picnic sandwiches. And the patriarch of each family awaits his turn to slit the throat of a lamb or a goat that Rowe has sold him.