Eidul Azha is just a few days away. The already chaotic traffic is somehow turned even more chaotic than usual, because this time the traffic includes animals. There are cows, bulls, goats and lambs in all kinds of vehicles and on the roads, all heading somewhere in the city at the same time as everyone else.

A very common sight is that of a cow standing in a pickup truck in the middle of all this, with its head out from the grill of the vehicle, looking directly at the people on bikes and cars beside it. Somewhere close to it, the kids scream out of excitement and capture its closest shot on their phones.

This is us. And we do this every single year without thinking about whether any of it makes sense. Nobody is being judged here. This is just about what actually happens between the bakra mandi and your home, and what the animal goes through in all that, nobody really bothers to think about.

It starts from the time you buy your animal. Your dad negotiated, argued, walked away twice, came back and still paid more than he wanted to. That’s just how bakra mandi works.

Now the animal is yours and it needs to get home. And this is where I really wish we had teleportation technology — just point your phone at the animal, press a button and it appears in your home. But since science has let us down on this specific issue, we have to do it the other way — ‘our way’!

If it’s a small animal, like a goat or a ram, the scene is quite different; because of their size, they are mostly seen taking a ride in autos, cars and motorbikes! Yes, motorbikes!

The poor thing probably spends the whole ride wondering what on earth it did wrong to deserve this. The wind, the honking, strangers staring and laughing, and it’s held tight by someone on the motorbike, thinking this is the strangest day of its entire life.

And if it’s a big animal like a cow, bull or camel, the scene is completely different. They can find themselves pushed into the back of a truck or van crowded with many more animals bought from the mandi, that are dropped at different locations on the way. And if they are lucky, they may find themselves driven in style on a van hired just for them, with their new owners riding besides them, petting and pampering them during the ride.

The moment they arrive at their destined place, it’s no more a private thing, it’s basically a neighbourhood event that everyone loves to get involved in. And most of you have already seen it several times when a bull or a cow is stubborn and has already decided it is not getting off from the pickup truck.

This is when a lot of people just join in to handle the situation. They simply appear, each one having their own technique to handle the situation. Someone pulls the rope from the front, others push from the back, some give instructions, while kids run right or left to get the best view.

In whichever way the animal is brought, amid all the chaos and festivity around it, you must know that they are stressed. They are feeling hot. Because it is the month of May, and maybe they hadn’t had water since the mandi.

The most important part

Islam has guidelines for everything. Just like we have to observe the sunnah of sacrifice on Eidul Azha, we have to take care of these sacrificial animals too.

The animal should have water before and after transport. It should not be handled in ways that cause pain. There is a whole framework of how to treat animals; however, it is sad to say that when the actual time comes, people just forget everything.

When the animal arrives

The animal has no idea what is happening. It is stressed, it is confused, it is standing on concrete instead of whatever it was standing on before, and it is being fed by different people every few hours, because everyone in the house wants a turn.

Though feeding your sacrificial animal is a whole new experience and one of the more entertaining parts of having it home, just know that a goat or a sheep has absolutely no standards. It will eat your chips, your biscuits, your leftover fries, the plastic wrapper the biscuits came in and possibly chew the dupatta of your mum or sister if it wants to.

But just because it will eat something doesn’t mean it should. Their stomach is not built for your snacks and they will make sure you find out about it — ‘loudly, on the floor’. So, stick to their actual food like dry grass, hay and leaves. This way, everyone in the house stays happy. You better understand!

Moreover, taking pictures and making memories is fine, but make sure you are not flashing the camera directly in their face. These animals are not used to modelling and photoshoots; they are pure domestic creatures that enjoy being petted, and love to walk and be fed.

What they don’t enjoy

They don’t want you to treat them like they’re participating in a marathon.

When you make a bull, cow and goat run through a street, it looks exciting and sometimes funny to you and all the people surrounding it. But from the animal’s side, it is pure panic. These animals’ survival instinct is built around one thing: when something feels wrong, run. They just run because their body told them danger is here and staying means dying.

What triggers a sacrificial animal?

The noise: Honking, shouting, crowds, etc. All of it registers as a threat.

The crowd: When multiple people surround an animal, trying to control it, the animal reads it as being a threat to its survival. So what it naturally does is to break free and run, which you have probably witnessed.

Unfamiliar environment: They were in a field or pen their whole life; suddenly there’s concrete, traffic and humans around them. Everything feels wrong to them.

So, when you make them run through the street for fun, just know that from their side, there is nothing fun happening. They are terrified and thinking of escaping from the situation.

If you are still taking it as fun, please give one serious thought to the poor living thing, scared and trying its best to save itself. Videos of a bull hitting a motorcyclist, a cow running wildly in the market, or goats hitting horns against passers-by are perhaps reels that get you hundreds of views instantly, but do consider that the animals are doing it purely out of instinct.

Every single Eidul Azha, hundreds of people across Pakistan get injured in animal-related incidents. According to a local newspaper, last year on Eidul Azha 2025 alone, Punjab reported 144 injuries linked to sacrificial animals, with 33 people seriously hurt and rushed to hospitals. And that’s just the reported ones. The scraped knees, the minor kicks, the motorcycle that got sat on — those don’t make it into any report.

We don’t mean to scare anyone. All we want is to bring to your attention that an animal around 400 kg is not a pet, and the moment we start treating it like one is the moment when things go wrong immediately.

This is also why Islam’s guidelines on calm handling exist. A stressed animal behaves unpredictably. And an animal that spent its last days in fear and chaos — that is on us.

These animals don’t get a choice in any of this. The least we can do is make sure the days they spend with us are not the worst days of their lives.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 23rd, 2026