Sulu Eid celebration in peril as clashes continue

COTABATO CITY --- The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Saturday appealed to state and non-state forces” fighting in Sulu to allow residents to freely move to safer areas for Monday’s congregational Eid’l Adha prayers.
By non-state forces, the ARMM's executive branch meant the Abu Sayyaf and sympathetic jihadist groups in Sulu that are subject of continuing military offensives for three weeks now.
The Eid’l Adha is feast of sacrifice” in Islam, an important event for Muslims which they celebrate during the 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah in the Islamic lunar-based Hijrah calendar, where they go out to perform open-field congregational prayers.This year’s Eid’l Adha corresponds to September 12 in the Gregorian calendar, which Malacañang declared as legal non-working holiday.ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, presiding chairman of the inter-agency regional peace and order council, said he is worried the hostile situation in the five towns Sulu, where bandits and soldiers are locked in a showdown, will unduly deny evacuees the chance to celebrate the Eid’l Adha on Monday. It is a `burning’ desire for able-bodied Muslims to go out and pray in groups the day they ought to commemorate the Eid’l Adha,” Hataman said.Sulu public officials said no fewer than 50 Abu Sayyaf bandits and more than 20 soldiers were killed in the continuing spate of hostilities in the five towns, Patikul, Maimbung, Indanan Parang and Panamao.

Thousands of villagers in the strife-torn towns were forced to relocate to squalid evacuation centers for fear of getting trapped in the crossfire. We wish for them to have peaceful outdoor Eid’l Adha prayers. We are hoping the protagonists in the conflict would give the displaced people safe areas where they can perform their obligatory worship rites,” Hataman said.Muslim preachers in Sulu told www.ndbcnews.com.ph they are more worried of the presence of Abu Sayyaf gunmen than seeing government forces in the surroundings owing to the group’s practice of using civilians as human shields when cornered by pursuing soldiers. They can do something bad to civilians on Monday during the commemoration of the Eid’l Adha and put the blame on the military to trigger public hatred towards the government,” said a Tausug cleric, who studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azzhar University in Cairo, Egypt.The source, who is active in da’awah (preaching) activities in the five conflict-stricken towns, said the Abu Sayyaf has been circulating text messages warning evacuees of decapitation if they help the military locate their hideouts.The ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Relief Team (HEART) dispersed food supplies and medicines to thousands of evacuees in an outreach mission in Sulu province early this week.Sulu is known throughout the world as haven of the Abu Sayyaf, where it harbors captives kidnapped in nearby Mindanao provinces and from abroad.

The group, which claims allegiance to the Independent State of Iraq and Syria, is feared for its practice of beheading captives if ransom demands are not met.So important is the Eid’l Adha to Muslims, for them much more significant than the Eid’l Fitr, the culmination of the month-long Ramadhan fasting season, where they abstain from food and drinks from dawn to dusk for one lunar cycle, about 28 to 29 days, as a religious obligation and atonement for wrongdoings.

The Eid’l Adha is commemorated yearly by Muslims to honor the biblical act of loyalty to God (Allah in Islam) by Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic), chronicled both in the bible and in the Qur’an to have nearly slaughtered his son as an offering in a test of faith via divine instigation.The biblical and Qur’anic narration of the story concluded with Archangel Gabriel (Jibrael) preventing Abraham from slitting the throat of the child and offering instead a sacrificial ram from the wilderness.