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Meat pleasure and Calf

In Urdu, for a situation where a person causes a great loss to someone for his own little gain, it is said that he slaughtered my calf for his piece of meat. The story behind this proverb is that a person had a guest for a day. The host, while feeding him pulses in the afternoon, gave the excuse that today is butcher’s off, so he has to eat pulses which has been cooked at home.

The guest ate pulses at that time, but he had a strong desire in heart to have meat in his food. He noticed that the host had a calf. He decided that the same calf would be eaten for dinner. So, in the conversation after the meal, he told the host that in the village from which he was coming, there had been an epidemic among the cattle in which all the cattle had died. This epidemic spreading in different settlements will come to his settlement very soon and then his calf will also die or the sick animal will have to be slaughtered and then eating its meat can be very harmful.

The host’s intention was that he would slaughter his calf on the occasion of his son’s wedding in a few months to fulfill its feast, but the guest frightened the host with his words to such an extent that he felt relieved in slaughtering his calf immediately. After which it became possible that the guest ate meat in the dinner, though he could not eat more than a few pieces of meat. This is where the saying of slaughtering another’s calf for one’s own piece of meat came into existence.

One of the characteristics of human beings is that which is expressed by this proverb. They are self-interested people who do not hesitate to cause any harm to others for their own little gain. Sometimes they create a psychology of fear and sometimes they encourage others to take action by inciting human greed. As a result, that person either suffers a loss or is deprived of a great benefit. All this happens because of a person who by exaggerating, telling lies, playing with human psychology, gains as much as a piece of meat, but damages another person as much as a calf.

On the contrary, another character is the one mentioned by the Holy Quran in the context of the biography of Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him). This incident has been described in many places in the Holy Quran that when the angels came to him in human form, Prophet Ibrahim invited them to eat as guests. On this occasion, instead of feeding the guests with pulses, vegetables or chicken, he arranged a fat, fresh calf from his herd and slaughtered it for them. This character is a character of a generous and selfless entity. This is a character of those who are unconcerned with worldly gains and losses and keep the hereafter in front of them.

Both types of characters have always existed in the world and still exist today. Holders of the first character get what is in their fate. But such people are away from God’s mercy forever. There will be nothing for them in the Hereafter except disgrace and hell. People of other characters like to go to any extent to fulfill the needs of others. These people apparently trade at a loss. But these people who sacrifice their calf to feed meat to others will find the highest levels of heaven tomorrow. Blessings and prosperity in the world are other than that.