Re: Philosophy of "Qurbai"
There are two answers;
One in conformity of religion. Other against it.
First. Like it is mentioned, Qurbani is sacrifice of something dear to a person.
After nurturing an animal one sees animal losing its life. One has to feel loss of life in front of one's eyes and feels sorrow but content that everything one day has to go. The animal has gone to heaven or so on. That seems to be the spirit.
Another version is to feel if your own son was to be losing life for Allah what would you have felt. Very difficult to learn and even difficult to make others understand. Even though people send their kids to war on usual basis. Which has no guarentee of life. These parents feel sorrow and happiness at the same time.
Now the not so religious or even anti religious view.
One is: How can it always be a life to be taken for making God happy? Can God not be happy by someone growing one plant that day?
Second is: What kind of God will ask a man to take his son's life just for his pleasure? How come a man would agree to this based just on a dream? How come a son will say, Thats OK dad , just kill me. Make sure the knife is sharp enough so you son't have to work hard.
Why should one do it if one did not get a dream of sacrificing even a cow/goat.
One did not raise an animal how one is supposed to have the feelings of loss. All one think is how one is going to make Tikka/Kabab!
OK. I dragged it a bit but this kind of philosophy can be difficult for everyone to get.