Corban Festival

The Corban Festival is a traditional festival celebrated by over ten ethnic minorities in China including Uyghur ethnic group. Also known as "Sacrifice Festival" or "Al Adha Feast", the Corban Festival is named with the Festival of Fast-breaking and Mawlid al-Nabi as one of the three major Islamic festivals. During the festival, people will take part in community worship to pilgrimage to Allah, and also, slay livestock and offer sacrifice to Allah, to whom they are desired to get closer.

Before the festival, every family is busy in cleaning house, making festival pastry, and preparing for livestock to be slaughtered. Breed of livestock varies with the financial conditions of every family, with sheep, cattle, camel and chicken as the common choice.

In the morning of the festival, people will take a bath, dress up and go to mosque for community worship, which is of the largest scale all the year round. On this specific day, everyone should fast for half a day until the end of the worship. After that, they will go back home and slay livestock. It is believed to be wizard to speak out "Takbir" (There is no god but Allah) when slaughtering livestock. Livestock meat is usually divided into three portions: one for the family members, one for relatives and the rest for the poor. Then it is time for extending festival greetings, first to villagers having suffered family disasters such as funeral recently, then to the elderly, and finally to relatives and friends. According to the custom of Uyghur ethnic group, greetings to the elderly of husband's and wife' s families should be extended by the couple together, while those to others can be extended separately. Other than mutual greetings, a series of literary and art activities will be carried out to intensify the atmosphere of festival. For example, the Uyghur people who are apt at singing and dancing will hold a grand Maxi Laifu performance gathering at the square, where they will play musical instruments while singing and dancing.

As a religious festival of Moslem, the Corban Festival is similar to other traditional festivals in terms of promoting social contact. During this grand festival, people will care for and share happiness with one another, which can enhance the interpersonal affections and promote harmony among the ethnic minorities jointly celebrating the festival.