The Eastern Question: Buying Sheep For The Koorban Bairam Ceremony At Stamboul

Description

This engraving, published in The Illustrated London News on January 20, 1877, depicts preparations for Eid al-Adha in Istanbul. This scene, published in the newspaper with the headline "The Eastern Question: Buying Sheep for the Koorban Bairam Ceremony at Stamboul," demonstrates the keen interest Western observers in the religious rituals and daily dynamics of Ottoman society. The engraving depicts a marketplace where sacrificial animals were bought and sold before Eid al-Adha. Men dressed in traditional attire are engaged in heated bargaining over the prices of rams and goats. The engraving documents not only a religious ritual but also an ethnographic slice of 19th-century Ottoman urban life: crowded marketplaces, social interaction, religious devotion, and commercial activity are presented together.