Eid-ul-Adha:
The Moral Lesson
By Dr. Mohiuddin Waseem
McAllen, TX
This week, Muslims all over the world celebrated
`Eid-Ul-Adha', a day to commemorate the sacrificial
act of Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him (PBUH).
Both, the Judeo-Christianity and the Islamic traditions
affirm to the fact that Prophet Abraham was tested
by God Almighty in one thing which he held most
dear to his heart; a vision wherein he was to
sacrifice his only son to God. When Abraham discussed
his vision with his son (Ishmael) (PBUH) he replied,
"O my father do as you are commanded. You
shall, by God's will, find me to be among the
patient".
Abraham took his son Ishmael and placed him on
the ground and when he was about to sacrifice
Ishmael, God called out "O Abraham! Thou
hast already fulfilled the vision! This was indeed
a manifest trial". God then provided him
a ram as an alternate sacrifice in place of his
son and a reward for his sincere intentions. Afterwards
God blessed Abraham with a second son Isaac (PBUH),
a great and righteous prophet. The story can be
found in the pages of the Holy Quran Chapter 37,
verses 100-113.
The Biblical story in the book of Genesis differs
by naming Isaac as the favorite son stating, “And
God said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee
of” (Genesis 22:2). Other than that difference
the stories in the Holy Quran and the Bible are
in agreement that God did not want Abraham to
actually sacrifice his son but the purpose of
this trial was to test his loyalty. Here too God
stops Abraham at the last minute and makes Isaac's
sacrifice unnecessary by providing a ram, caught
in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead.
Though the Holy Quran (Chapter 37) does not spell
out the name of Ishmael in the text (Arabic),
in the Muslim mind the likelihood of him being
the sacrificial one is strengthened by the fact
that the Quran immediately after mentioning the
story of sacrifice (verses 99-111) says, “And
We gave him (Abraham) the glad tidings of Isaac,
a prophet, one of the righteous”(verse 112-113)
therefore one who was not born yet (Isaac) cannot
be the sacrificial one. Similarly the “only
son” of Bible cannot be Isaac because even
the bible is in agreement that Isaac was Abraham’s
second son and at a time when Abraham had only
‘one son’ it was Ishmael himself.
The famous 13th century Muslim scholar Ibn Kathir
in his famous book “Stories of the Prophets”
is of the opinion that biblical account of naming
Isaac was tempered with at the hands of some Jewish
scribes. He further elaborates his point by saying,
“The only thing which could have incited
them to tamper with this is their jealousy with
Arabs. Ishmael is the father of Arabs who lived
in the area of Hijaz, from which our Prophet (Mohammad)
(PBUH) came. Isaac is the father of Jacob, who
was called Israel, to whom they relate to. They
wanted to take away this honor from Arabs, and
so they tempered with the Book of God with omissions
and additions” (p153).
Regardless of whom the sacrificial one was either
Ishmael or Isaac; I believe both the sons of Abraham
were righteous prophets and if asked, would have
shown the same obedience to their father in fulfilling
his vision without even asking a single question.
Even if we agree for the sake of discussion that
there truly was a rivalry between Bani Ishmael
and Bani Isaac as Ibn Kathir suggested, the message
of monotheism which came out of Abraham’s
family deserves more discussion than the political
feud within the family, which serves nothing but
smears the characters of these mighty prophets
and seeds hatred among the followers of Abrahamic
faiths to no avail.
In such debates we often overlook the fact that
killing of human beings especially children was
a common religious practice in ancient cultures.
It was common among agrarian societies ,e.g. in
the ancient Middle East, where the sacrifice of
humans to pagan gods was a normal way of showing
ones devotion and loyalty to the deity, which
guaranteed the fertility of their soils. In ancient
China and Egypt human sacrifice was connected
with ancestor worship in which slaves and servants
were killed or buried alive along with the deceased
kings in order to provide service in the afterlife.
The practice was widely prevalent even across
the Atlantic and there is archeological evidence
that the South American Aztec sacrificed annually
to the sun, and the Incas made human sacrifice
on the accession of their rulers.
It is immaterial to me which son of Abraham fulfilled
his vision because I read the story of sacrifice
in the context of ancient Middle Eastern cultures
which in those days favored human sacrifice. I
am in favor of modern understanding of the text
where God inspired Abraham in order to teach him
a lesson that human sacrifice is abhorrent and
it is the surrender of ones will alone that God
required. I believe all civilizations of the world
are indebted to Abraham’s family who demonstrated
the moral lesson of their sacrificial act in such
a way that abolished the era of human sacrifice
in favor of animal sacrifice.
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