Muna — the ancient Mina — is the valley lying immediately to the east of Mekka, through which the pilgrims to the holy city pass on their way to and from Arafat, and in which the principal rites of the Hajj — the stoning of the pillars and the sacrifice — are performed. In The Achehnese Vol. I, Snouck Hurgronje cites Muna in connection with the celebration of the great sacrificial feast in Acheh.
The Great Sacrificial Feast
The author explains that on the 10th day of the month Dhu’l-Hijjah — the “Great Hajj” — the great sacrificial feast in connection with the pilgrimage is celebrated in the valley of Muna, which lies to the east of Mekka. The books of the law recommend, though they do not imperatively prescribe, the holding of public prayers in other places some time after sunrise on this day. These prayers are followed by the sermon proper to the feast, after which the sacrifice itself — of a buffalo, cow, goat, or sheep — is carried out.
The Buffalo and the Plain of the Resurrection
The choice of the sacrificial animal in Acheh is regulated by a belief which connects the sacrifice at Muna with the eschatological “plain of the resurrection” (padang meuka — see Padang Mekka). A goat is too small to serve as a steed upon that plain, and a buffalo, accustomed as it is to wallow in mud and shallow water, might inconvenience his rider at the Last Day; the Achehnese therefore choose the animal that will serve best as a mount on the day of resurrection. The sacrifice, in other words, is conceived as a vicarious offering which the worshipper will ride upon the Padang Mahshar; and the local Achehnese commemoration of the sacrifice at Muna thus reproduces, in the uplands of Sumatra, an institution whose geographical seat is the valley of the ancient Mina.
Achehnese Piety and the Pilgrimage
The valley of Muna thus belongs, in the Achehnese imagination, to that complex of sacred localities — Mekka, Arafat, Muna, the plain of resurrection — which the Achehnese pilgrim visits on the Hajj and to which the home-staying Achehnese also appeals in his daily ritual. The very word Muna, in the Achehnese form, preserves the ancient name Mina and testifies to the continued vitality, in the popular religion of Acheh, of the geographical memory of the holy places.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.