Chinese Muslims are celebrating their traditional festival of Eid al-Adha, also called the Feast of Sacrifice, that fell Monday this year.

In the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, over 1.91 million Muslimswent to about 3,400 mosques in the region to offer Eid prayers before visiting their ancestors' tombs and meeting their relativesand friends to exchange festival greetings.

"Eid al-Adha indicates the beginning of a new year to us Muslims, and my most fervent prayer is to make big money by driving a taxi, and buy another car in the near future," said 25-year-old Li Zhao, a villager in Xiakou Town, Qingtongxia City.

"My new year wish is to study the Koran well, and become an imam (preacher)," said Ma Guanglin, a student at a 200-year-old mosque in the town.

As one of the major Islamic festivals, Eid al-Adha falls at theend of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, and is marked by some ten ethnic groups in China including the Hui and Uygur.

In the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, about 10 million Muslims celebrated the festival. Adult males went to the mosques to attend the rituals after washing themselves, while women and children were required to stay at home, doing cleaning or baking cakes made of walnut meat, sesame and honey.

After the rituals in the mosques, local people headed for theirancestors' tombs, and then held various activities, including dancing, singing, horse racing and wrestling.

Though mutton is available in the markets, most people stick tothe traditional custom of butchering their own sheep on that day. They divide the meat into three pieces - one for the family, one for guests and the other for the poor.

When told that about 500 people were trampled to death or injured on Sunday during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, Ma Xiaoyun, a Ningxia villager, said, "As a Chinese Muslim,I sincerely pray for the safety of each pilgrim. But it's painful to learn about such tragedies."

The Hajj is mandatory once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it. The pilgrims begin the ritual by retracing the footsteps of the prophet Mohammed 14 centuries ago.

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