Sacrificial Skins: The Value of Pakistan’s Eid al‐Azha Animal Hide Collection1

• Published in: The Muslim world (Hartford) Vol. 112; no. 1; pp. 14 - 32
• Main Author: Mouftah, Nermeen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• ISSN: 0027-4909; 1478-1913
• DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12419

In Pakistan, one of the most significant celebrations on the Muslim calendar, Eid al‐ Azha (Feast of the Sacrifice), is marked by two major rituals. At the center of the festival is the animal slaughter remembering the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. The second, dating to Pakistan's earliest days as a nation, is the collection of animal hides from the sacrifice. NGOs, political parties, and madrasas annually compete to collect and auction the sacrificial skins. This paper examines how Alkhidmat Foundation–the social welfare branch of the Islamist party Jama'at‐e‐Islami–invests in a risky fundraising ritual that animates the value of sacrifice in their humanitarian work. While historically the auction of animal hides has been lucrative, over the last decade, the income has come under threat due to the rise of synthetic leathers on the global market, inflation, and climate change, which have left Pakistan's leather commodity in peril and, with it, the fate of a major source of income for the country's social services. Pakistan's skins collection offers insight into a fundraising practice that instantiates sacrifice writ large: of time, safety, and resources, and sometimes, of intimate relations. Sacrifice is the motivating value that underpins dedication to the annual hide collection and articulates Alkhidmat's humanitarianism through the human capability of sacrifice.