South Ural State University unites students from 48 countries of the world. Among SUSU students, there are representatives of different religious denominations. Students from the Arab and Asian countries told how they celebrate one of the main Muslim holidays — Kurban Bayrami.
Its title refers to the history of Prophet Ibrahim’s faith act. This year the holiday is celebrated on August 21-25. It begins in 70 days after another important Muslim event — Uraza-Bairam (Eid al-Fitr), which marks the end of Ramadan.
“Muslims all over the world traditionally celebrate two main holidays: Uraza-Bairam and Kurban Bayrami. The history of the origin of Kurban Bayrami is connected with Prophet Ibrahim. In the morning of this day, all the celebrants go to pray. After that those who can afford it sacrifice sheep or calves and settle down to the celebratory dinner together with a family and neighbors,” told Ikrom Dzhumaev, a student from Tajikistan.
At SUSU, there are a lot of students from the Arab countries, some of them live on Campus and have no possibility to celebrate Kurban Bayrami with their families. However, it does not prevent them from following the Muslim traditions. Ahmed Syala, a student from Iraq, told how he spent the first day of the holiday.
“On the first day of Kurban Bayrami everybody greeted each other, I called my family. After that, all the friends got together and I cooked lamb for them.”
It should be noted that at the university great attention is paid to the building of communication between the representatives of different countries. Foreign students from China, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Latin America and other countries actively participate in the creative life of the university, organizing bright events in order to acquaint their fellow students with the specific features of their cultures. These are the International Friendship Festival “We Are Different but We Are Together”, Day of the Arab Culture, Day of the African Culture and others.