Eid al-Adha, which this year takes place in early June, is an annual “feast of sacrifice” in which Muslims slaughter livestock to honour a passage of the Qur’an in which the prophet Ibrahim prepared to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, who intervened and replaced the child with a sheep.
King Mohammed VI has urged his fellow Moroccans not to slaughter sheep for upcoming Eid al-Adha festivities as the country grapples with dwindling herds due to a six-year drought.
Prices have become so exorbitant that 55% of families surveyed by the Moroccan Center for Citizenship, an NGO, last year said they struggled to cover the costs of buying sheep and the utensils needed to prepare them.
King Hassan II, Mohammed VI’s predecessor and father, issued similar decrees three times throughout his reign, during wartime, drought and when the International Monetary Fund mandated an end to food subsidies in the country.
He cited economic hardship and the climate crisis as reasons for the rising prices of livestock and sheep shortage in the north African state.
