Drunkards’ Thursday (Khamis el-Sakara), also called “Slaughter Thursday” (Khamis el-Dbih)
Its history and origins:
It is said to be a popular Christian, Maronite custom dating back more than 800 years. On this day people began eating the meat of the lamb they had been fattening since September (“fattening” here means feeding it without letting it walk, so that its meat would be tender). Custom also required that the house be emptied of all meat by the evening of the Sunday before Lent, before the fast began on Monday, because people abstained from meat for the whole of Great Lent. So they drank wine and arak and ate meat before fasting throughout the days of Lent.
“Sakara” (drunkards) or “Dhakara” (remembrance)?
First, the word “dhakara” in this sense does not exist in Arabic. There is the word “dhikara” (with an i), meaning male as opposed to female, or the “dhikara” of iron, meaning the hardest, finest iron.
Second, the linguistically correct expression is the week of “remembrance” (dhikr) of the dead, not the “dhakara” of the dead.
So let us remember our dead and pray for them, especially in this last week before Lent begins:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
As for drunkenness, we say with the Apostle Paul: “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).
A blessed start to Lent!
