August 19, 2010
Source: The Washington Post
In a barn in Mount Airy, Ali Manguera pinned a 69-pound goat to the concrete floor, pointed the animal's head toward Mecca -- some 7,000 miles east of this rural Maryland farm -- and slit its throat in a single, expert motion.
Manguera knows this process well. Following a centuries-old tradition, he has been slaughtering his own animals for Muslim holidays since his childhood in Somalia.
But like thousands of Muslim immigrants in the Washington area, Manguera has been forced to adapt old practices to a new land -- a country where state and federal regulations, as well as cultural barriers, complicate the booming business of ritual animal sacrifice and slaughter.