Qurbān is the sacrifice of a livestock animal during Eid ul-Adha

Eid ul-Adha

Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice...

. The word form was borrowed from Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 qorbān "offering" and Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 qurbānā "sacrifice", etymologised through the cognate Arabic triliteral

Triliteral

The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals"...

 as "a way or means of approaching someone".

The sacrifice of Abraham

In Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

, the sacrifice of an animal is legal only during 10-13 Dhu l-Hijjah

Dhu al-Hijjah

Dhu al-Ḥijjah is the twelfth and final month in the Islamic calendar.This is a very sacred month in the Islamic calendar, marking the end of the year. It is in this month in which the Hajj takes place....

, the 12th lunar month of the Islamic calendar

Islamic calendar

The Hijri calendar , also known as the Muslim calendar or Islamic calendar , is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries , and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic...

. It is understood as a symbolic repetition of Abraham's sacrifice of a ram in place of his son, a crucial notion in Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 and Islam alike.

Most schools of fiqh

Fiqh

Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

accept that the animal must be killed according to the prohibitions of halal

Halal

Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...

sacrifice and that the animal in question may be a goat, sheep, cow or camel.