In small-town Virginia, Muslim residents face a crisis of sheep and zoning laws
WARRENTON, Va. — It was the day before one of the biggest Muslim holidays of the year, and the Rababeh family was in a panic.
The family had ordered hundreds of sheep, goats and cows to slaughter for customers in observance of Eid al-Adha, a holiday that ran from Tuesday to Thursday commemorating the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail at God’s behest, and God’s ultimate decision to let Ibrahim slay a sheep instead.
But now the family was scrambling to avert a crisis. Local officials had declared a few days earlier that, this year, the Rababehs’ Lebanese Butchers Slaughterhouse would not be granted the special-event permit it was required to have to accommodate its hundreds of expected customers. And now the town had placed a police barricade out front to block customers from walking through the slaughterhouse doors.
“These people are depending on me to deliver this once a year,” said Samir Rababeh, who helps his father, business owner Kheder Rababeh, manage Lebanese Butchers. “I don’t know what to tell them.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-small-town-virginia-a-crisis-of-sheep-and-conflicting-narratives/2018/08/24/ff23f8fc-a4bc-11e8-8fac-12e98c13528d_story.html
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