Price of sacrificial animals tripled before Eid al-Adha

ISTANBUL

Within the scope of preparations for Eid al-Adha, the first animal market in Istanbul has been created in the Arnavutköy district, with prices of the sacrificial animals doubling and tripling compared to last year.

Eid al-Adha, which will be celebrated in Türkiye between July 9 and 12, is an official Islamic holiday honoring the willingness of Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to God.

Visiting and buying a sacrificial animal from an animal market is a tradition, but the prices will not make many happy.

According to Kerem Yetimoğlu, the manager of the temporarily formed open market, the “demand for buying an animal is accelerating as the holiday time approaches.”

“However, the prices of the cattle have tripled,” he told İhlas News Agency and added: “Last year, the minimum sale price of a cattle was 10,000 Turkish Liras [$577]. This year, it starts from 27,000 liras [$1,559].”

Though, due to the size of a well-fed cattle, the price of some animals reaches up to 95,000 liras ($5,484).

The hike in prices of the small cattle is no different than the larger cattle.

“The prices of sheep doubled this year,” he said and went to say: “We used to sell a sheep for at least 1,000 liras [$57,70]. This year, the starting price is between 2,000 and 2,500 liras [$115,40 and $144,30].”

Even though he admitted that there is a decrease in sales by 40 percent compared to last year, Yetimoğlu is happy with the sales up to now and is confident they will sell all the animals until the Eid al-Adha.

“As of today, 250 cattle have been sold. We have some 200 more to sell,” he noted.

Bargaining with hard and long handshakes between the seller and the buyer is a well-known traditional and cheerful act to watch.

However, due to the pandemic, over the last two years, the buyer and the seller were bargaining using a stick, holding from each side, rather than a long handshake.

“Handshakes are back. These were the scenes we were looking forward to seeing,” he said while smiling.