The Middle Eastern music pulsing Tuesday at Cherry Hill's International Sports Center suggested that this was no ordinary roller-skating party. "It is a song about the 99 names of the prophet," Mahmoud "Mark" Zayyad said as dozens of youngsters glided and stumbled around the rink in celebration of Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest days of the Islamic calendar.

The music, Zayyad said, "is a way for kids to learn and have fun at the same time."Whether the children were internalizing such attributes of Muhammad as "witness," "messenger," and "God's servant," or just trying to stay upright, was hard to discern.

But all seemed to grasp that the crowds and commotion signaled a happy day. Many of the adults greeted one another with cheek-to-cheek hugs and greetings of "Eid Mubarek," or "Happy Eid" (pronounced eed).

Known as the "Festival of Sacrifice," Eid al-Hadah is a three-day commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael when he believed it to be God's wish. (Jewish and Christian traditions hold that Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, Ishmael's half-brother.)

In some parts of the world, families slaughter goats or lambs to mark the story of how God spared the boy and instructed Abraham, called Ibrahim by Muslims, to sacrifice a ram instead.

Although it is a major holy day for Muslims worldwide - including the 30,000 estimated to live in South Jersey - Misha Alkiyal of Cherry Hill realized Eid al-Adah's unfamiliarity to most Americans when she ordered special cupcakes at a local supermarket for her children to bring to school.

"I asked them to write 'Happy Eid,' " Alkiyal said with a laugh. "But they wrote 'Happy Birthday, Eid.' "Another Eid festival, Eid al-Fitr, marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which concluded this year on Sept. 9.

But Eid al-Adah is "more significant," said Arroj Zaffar of Voorhees, a Pakistani-born, British-raised mother of two. She brought her 19-month-old son and 6-year-old daughter to the sports center, where hundreds of Muslims opened the festivities by kneeling in prayer.

Geared mostly for young people, the activities included face painting, indoor soccer, video games, and an inflatable slide. Earlier in the day in Pennsauken, about 1,000 Muslim men, women, and children filled Savoy Catering, a large hall on Route 73 formerly called the Woodbine Inn.

Eight Sunni Muslim mosques in South Jersey sponsored both events. Local community leaders said it was the largest and most coordinated Eid celebration in the area since they began collaborating four years ago.

"This way you can meet people from all over," said Imam Khalid Nasim, prayer leader of the Islamic Center of South Jersey in Palmyra. Many who knelt on the black-and-gold rugs were attired in traditional clothing from their native countries, such as Pakistan and Jordan. Not so Sunny Choudhry, who wore a knitted New York Yankees hat, and son Zain, 8, who wore a Dallas Cowboys cap backward. "I have hat shops in Runnemede and Glendora," Choudhry explained.

At 8:30 a.m. and again at 9:30 a.m., Nasim led 30-minute prayers in honor of Abraham. The story is core to Islam, an Arabic word that means "submission.""In the Holy Book it is said that it is your intentions that matter," said Miftah Khan, a trustee of the center. Nasim, standing beside him, added, "We are all here for God to test us."