Ileya Festival is the Yoruba phrase for the Eid al-Adha or Eid al Kabir festival, which falls on 26-27 May this year in Nigeria, and since it is celebrated for three days by the Muslim faithful, it will run till Friday, 29th May. For Muslims who are already on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, a once in a lifetime obligation for those who can afford it, the fifth pillar of Islam, the Day of Arafah falls on May 26, and it is the day after that the faithful celebrate the Eid, the second of the two Eids in the Muslim calendar, the other being the Eid el fitr, the festival of breaking the Fast, considered the lesser eid which comes after the Ramadan. The Eid el Kabir, known as the Greater Eid, is next week, the first 10 days of the Dhul Hijjah having started yesterday. It is celebrated in remembrance of the sacrifice that Prophet Ibrahim undertook, following a dream in which Allah (SWT) appeared to him and commanded him to sacrifice whatever he treasured most. Prophet Ibrahim chose to sacrifice his son Ismail in the name of Allah, but as he went to perform the sacrifice at Mount Arafat, Allah intervened and substituted the son with a ram. Prophet Ibrahim is regarded as a devoted man of faith, a seeker and speaker of truth, and a friend of the Almighty Allah.
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The Greater Eid is celebrated as an act of faith and loyalty, in commemoration of his original example. “Indeed, Ibrahim was a whole ummah by himself devout to Allah, unswervingly upright, and he was not of the associators. He was thankful for Allah’s Graces. He selected him and He guided him to a straight Path. And We gave him good in this world, and in the Hereafter he shall be of the righteous. Then We have inspired you: “Follow the way of Ibrahim with exclusive devotion to Allah, and he was not of the Mushrikun” (Surah Nahl, 16: 120 -123). And it is further written in Surah an-Nisa, Ayah 125 that: “Who can be better in religion than one who submits his whole self to Allah, does good and follows the way of Ibrahim the true in faith?”
It is now that time of the year when Muslims, remembering Prophet Ibrahim, sacrifice an animal – a ram, a goat, a male sheep, bull, camel or cow – what is called a Qurbani animal, which is then divided into three portions and distributed between the family, second to outsiders or members of the extended family and friends; and the third portion is reserved for those in need. In countries where animal slaughter is frowned upon, Muslims in those countries donate to charity. The essence of the Edi del Fitr therefore is single-minded devotion to Allah, a mirror of loyalty and the resolve to do good to all men with love and the purity of heart. My earliest recollection of the eid el adha or Ileya (“let us go home”) as Yorubas call it, is that of a colourful, communal festival, a celebration of togetherness. Although it was a Muslim festival, nobody was excluded: Everyone participated in it, especially in Yorubaland where every family has a Christian wing, Muslim members and some traditional religion worshippers. Whenever it was time for any festival, religious divisions disappear and the community celebrates together. My fondest memory of Ileya was the slaughter of rams. Days before the festival, Muslim families would tether down rams in front of their houses. There was hardly no Muslim family that did not prepare for the eid: parents would buy new clothes for their children causing much excitement among tailors and seamstresses who were sure to get tailoring jobs. In those days, they were called tailors, not the fancy titles of nowadays where tailors are referred to as fashion designers or fashion stylists. Early on the eid day, Muslim children turned out in bright, elegant, new clothes, and followed their parents to the prayer ground. Christian children would not go to the eid ground, but we were very much part of the entire process. We knew that once the ram was slaughtered at the eid grounds, the festival had begun. The Muslims would return home and begin the slaughtering of those rams in front of their homes. Within two hours, food was bound to be ready, and it was the proper time to start going to the homes of Muslim friends whose parents were generous with food, fried meat, and drinks. It was neither greed nor hunger that took us to one Muslim home or the other, it was simply that we were also participants.
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In those days, some families bought about four or five rams, depending on the level of affluence or the size of the family. But even before eid day, it was the usual practice for Muslim children to bring the rams that had been bought by their parents to the playing field in the neighbourhood after school hours. The bigger the ram bought by your parents, the more boastful you were. Ram fights were organized, and the champion ram and the owner were both celebrated. People placed bets at the school field, in this case, Nawair-ud-deen Primary School, the same field where we played football, but during eid, it also became a place for ram fights. The rams were distinguished by their size and horns. The boys who brought them to the field had nicknames for them: Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Bruce Lee, Kolu, Gidigbo, Jendor, Gudu, Eje. Those who won the bets smiled home. Those who lost would still return the following day, oftentimes bringing another ram. Some of the rams fought as if they were on drugs! One day, the unexpected happened. One ram that behaved like a bull, fiercely aggressive, charged at another ram. It drew blood. Before we knew it, the other ram slumped and was on the ground. Pandemonium broke out. The two brothers that came with the ram broke down in hot tears. They were inconsolable. We all had to follow them home to beg their parents. The belief then was that you cannot use a dead animal or any animal with deformity, not even a broken horn, to celebrate the eid. When we got to the boys’ home, their father, an Alhaji, treated the incident as if it was a non-issue. That same day, he replaced the deceased ram with a live one, and on eid day we showed up to join the celebration. But the boys stayed away from the field. They didn’t bring a ram again that season. Ileya was also a season for music. We used to be entertained in the evenings by itinerant groups who sang both folk and religious songs. They were called “ajiwere” – the precursor of fuji music. The singers had a special kind of inflection with their songs and drums. They also competed among themselves. Days and even weeks after the main festival, Muslim families still shared meat, deep-fried, well sauced, wrapped in old newspapers. Ileya meat was sweet. The eid of those days was a festival of joy and unity.
Over the years, everything has changed. I am not even sure if young people, today’s Gen Z still stage ram fighting competitions at school fields ahead of eid. The eid has become a festival for the rich, now that a ram is as expensive as N500, 000 for a small sized one, and big rams like those I described earlier as costly as N750, 000 or even one million Naira. Parents who managed to buy one ram out of pride and a sense of obligation would never allow their children to gamble with such a huge expense in the name of ram fighting. Whereas many Muslim families in those days bought more than one ram, many Muslim families today would rather pool resources together with friends and share on Sallah day. You are not likely to find anybody displaying a ram in the frontage of their homes, or overnight as was once the case, whoever manages to buy a ram has to protect it, either hide it within the compound or assign a security guard to watch over it. Not everyone distributes Sallah meat these days. We used to hear that the best animal for Sallah sacrifice is a ram, but I understand that some families now buy a cow and share among themselves. Better still, others wait till after the eid prayer on Sallah Day before quickly rushing to the ram market by which time the cost of rams would have crashed. People have simply become very creative. There is an epidemic of empty pockets and empty values that has driven a wedge between us. Only the rich still manage to live well, and especially those who are lucky to have access to government corridors and treasury. As it is with Sallah, so it is with Christmas every December. Charity suffers, a sense of community is dying, there is no free food to share. In a recent report, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put the inflation figure for April 2026 at 15. 69%, up from 15.38% in March, a 0.31% increase. Food inflation stood at 16.06% on a year-on-year basis, with the highest rates recorded in Enugu, Kwara, and Adamawa states. Again, in those days, Christians and Muslims celebrated together but now with all the concerts about Christian genocide in Nigeria, it is doubtful if Christians will share meat with meet with Muslims. Religion, derived from the Latin word, religare, means to bind together, but trust is broken in or land…the country is no longer safe, religion no longer binds us together, it divides us.
The bigger problem is the erosion of faith. How many Muslims are actually a true servant and lover of the Almighty Allah? How many are like Prophet Ibrahim? How many can stand by the truth even when confronted with it? We are in the season of false innocence where there is a gap between private morality and public morality. Nigeria has been misdirected, misled and wrongly built by persons who are so religious they go to Mecca every year, and then follow it up with Umrah in a loud demonstration of piety. Prophet Ibrahim loved God and promoted Him as the true and only one God. It was his faith that defined the essence of the Festival of Sacrifice, not outward appearances. What we are left with today is mere appearances not the reality of love and faith. It is not certain for example that the eid will be celebrated with much freedom in the Middle East which is currently a theatre of war. Even here, there will be Ojude Oba, the cultural and historic festival of the Ijebu people which coincides with the eid el Kabir. But the Ojude Oba is more of a historic and cultural display than a religious festival. And in Northern Nigeria, there will be Durbars and horse races in front of the Emir’s palace. This year, it is election season in Nigeria and as the parties hold their primaries, there is no sense of faith and loyalty, rather the politicians, many of whom are Muslims, are busy promoting violence, protests and fraud. As we celebrate eid el adha, let every individual faithful search his or her conscience and may the truth of self-discovery set us all free and grant us the grace of awareness. Eid Mubarak. Barka da Sallah.
Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.
