Alessandro Digaetano Photographer

The main day of the Kurban festival: the morning prayer at the Id Kah Mosque. People crowded the square to pray.The Kurban Festival "Festival of Sacrifice" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, but instead was able to sacrifice a ram (by God's command). At times of the Kurban festival, more than hundreds thousand Muslims come to Id Kah Mosque to pray and celebrate. Traditional Uyghur music sounds from the minarets and people perform the "sama" dance in front of the mosque. As tradition, each family would sacrifice a domestic animal, such as a sheep, goat, cow, or camel, by slaughter. The family eats one third, another third is given to other relatives, friends or neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor as a gift. It is indeed habit to move from house to house for a short visit sitting at a set up table. *** General Caption *** The ancient Silk Road trading hub of Kashgar, in China's northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is being threatened by a government redevelopment plan that some say has a hidden political agenda. Kashgar's old city has survived the centuries, and remains an important Islamic cultural center for the Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang. Two-thirds of Kashgar's Old City will be bulldozed in the next few weeks under a government plan to "modernize" the area. According to the nongovernmental Beijing Cultural Protection Center, the densely packed houses and narrow lanes of old Kashgar are the best-preserved examples of a traditional Islamic city in all of China and "From a cultural and historical perspective, this plan of theirs is stupid," said Wu Lili, the managing director of the BCPC, "From the perspective of the locals, it's cruel." City officials have been moving a number of families out of Kashgar's city center, saying they need to rebuild old, dangerous houses and improve infrastructure.