The women climb the stairs to the second floor of the mosque. They slide off their shoes; some shed their head scarves. All are wearing their sparkling finest dresses and jewels.

They have come to pray and celebrate Eid al-Adha, “the Festival of Sacrifice,” a Muslim holy day celebrated around the world that commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his only son to Allah, as a test of his faith and obedience to God’s will. On the main floor, the men assemble. In Islam, men and women gather and pray separately.

At 8:30 a.m., more than 60 women file into a small room and form four rows, facing east toward Mecca, the holy city in Saudi Arabia. Some sit quietly after prayer and listen to the sermon; others move into the larger room to talk and keep an eye on the children playing.

“Eid Mubarak. Eid Mubarak,” they exchange the traditional Arabic greeting, “Blessed Festival.” They embrace, kiss each other on the cheek. The teenage girls gather outside the bathroom, “by the mirror,” they joke, to talk about school, grades and other things.

“The eid is important to me because our lives are so busy with school,” says Aasya Moussaoui, 16, of Corvallis. “It gives me a chance to step away and take a breath. To get together with family and friends. To relax and renew the feeling of community. And eat doughnuts.”

Doughnuts are indeed a favorite among the foods that cover a table in the main room, offering an array of specialties and treats as diverse as the women who brought them. There’s pumpkin pie, hummus, cornbread, fruit, cheese and mamoul, a dish from Syria and Jordan made with dates and nuts.

Mariam Rehman, 18, said she was happy to see an advertisement for Black Friday on Facebook that said “Happy Eid al-Adha.”

“It was nice to get our holiday acknowledged,” said Rehman, a freshman in psychology at Oregon State University. “Usually they only recognize the main holidays: Christmas, Kwanzaa.”

Born in the United States, Rehman wears a bright-colored langa, a traditional long top and skirt with an intricate fabric from her parents’ native Pakistan. Muslims use a lunar calendar and this year, the feast coincided with the American Thanksgiving holiday.

At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, about the time many Americans sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, Muslims were sitting down to eat, breaking their fast, said Mayram al-Arfaj, a graduate student in mathematics who’s studying at the INTO OSU center, which formerly was known as the English Language Institute.

Muslims fast the day before the eid and break the fast at sundown. The festival comes during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The holiday is about submission to God, said Ann Kim, who converted to Islam from Christianity 26 years ago.

“Can you imagine waiting so long for a son?” Kim asked. And yet, when God asked Ibrahim to sacrifice his only son, the father had no doubt. “One hundred percent submission to God,” Kim said. “In this holiday, you truly renew yourself.”

Al-Arfaj notes that every Muslim who could afford it would sacrifice a sheep Friday, remembering the sheep that was sacrificed in the place of Ibrahim’s son, Ismael. The sheep meat is divided into three portions: one portion is distributed to the poor; one portion goes to the immediate family and one portion is given to neighbors and friends.

“There is no classification,” Al-Arfaj said. “Arab or non-Arab; recent Muslim; rich or poor. We are all equal. The mosque is the house of Allah.”

Elham Maqsood, an OSU student at INTO, lives in Corvallis with her husband and four children — far from her mother and sisters in Saudi Arabia.

“I miss my family. I miss my home,” Maqsood said. “I’m happy I can find a lot of Muslims here. They are like my family.”