Hundreds of years ago….. A perfect complete home with a father and a son included. Both of them were filled with the same beautiful Love and compassion that is an essence of human nature since first man was forged into the world.

Father once had a dream, a hallucination, that he is sacrificing his son for Allah. Back in those times, Allah used to communicate with people through definite signs, How felicitous and fortunate they were !

The next night . he again witnessed the very dream. Postulating it to be a true one, as all his former dreams proved out to be true, He conceived from it that Allah demanded a sacrifice from him. In order to accomplish Allah’s command, he sacrificed a herd of camels and disseminated the meat among the poor.

Repeatedly in the following nights he witnessed the same dream and did the same sacrifices. Still, the dream didn’t cease. Then he had second thoughts.

He called his beloved son and elaborated him the story , he said “O my son! I have seen you being sacrificed in a dream; what do you say?” — (The Quran: 37:102)

The son, being aware of the fact that his father is a prophet of Allah, replied without any reluctance: “O my father! Do what you are commanded; if God please, you will find me of the patient ones” — (The Quran: 37:102).

The father , the son and his mother…. everyone though being anxious and shaken inside, were delighted and overjoyed over getting a chance to serve Allah. How sacramental they were !

Fatherly tender Love and child’s fond affection was going to be sacrificed for the Greater Divine. On their way to alter, they were distracted and horrified by the Satan but they didn’t let anything come in their way.

At the Altar the son threw himself prostrate before his illustrious father, who blindfolded as he was, lest his parental love should come in the way, applied the knife to his son’s throat. An exemplary conduct of complete submission to the will of Allah; sacrificing his only son in His way! The soul of Abraham within himself was praising the Lord, saying: “My prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are all for God, the Lord of the worlds”.

Angels stood metamorphosed, as it were, into lifeless pictures and overcome by extreme anxiety. 

“God is great; God is great; God is great; God is great; There is no Allah, but He. And God is great; All praise for God.”

My words and my wisdom is not enough to pen down the great light and the essence of that very happening….

Abraham was about to cut the throat of his only son. But lo! He heard a voice from Above:

“O Abraham! you have indeed shown the truth of the Vision; thus We reward the doers of good. Surely this is a manifest trial” — (The Quran: 37:104-106).

The Patriarch laid down the knife and there was rejoicing mingled with thanksgiving that God had accepted the Sacrifice. It dawned on him what his Vision really meant – viz., that what God wanted was not the blood of his son but the sacrifice of that highest of love which a father has for his son and vice-versa. It was the sacrifice of personal passion that was acceptable to God and that was done both by the father and the son. The father and son fell down in prayer praising their Lord.

From that day, to commemorate this outstanding act of sacrifice (qurbani) by Prophet Abraham, people sacrifice a lamb, goat, ram or any other animal on Eid-ul-Adha and give the meat to friends, neighbors, relatives and the needy. Eid is celebrated with a great zeal and enthusiasm by the Muslims all over the world.

In-spite of judging the intentions of other people behind the sacrifice, Can’t we just do our part honestly ?

I wish all My brothers and sisters a very Happy Eid Mubarik ! People who are away for Hajj , a very warm Congratulations to them too ! 

Eat lots of meat (only your part 😉 ), get fat and remember me in your prayers 🙂