Ali Ataie – The Abrahamic Concept of Sacrifice in Biblical & Qur’anic Narratives of Isaac & Ishmael Ataie
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Let's talk about the
narratives of the sacrifice. Sacrifice from Sakhra and
Fakhere,
from the Latin
meaning to do something sacred.
That's loghatan in its etymology
and its
technical meaning to give up something for God,
right?
So
when we look at
the biblical narrative
Genesis 22
and I won't talk for that long because
we're on a time crunch and we need
to eat and I'm smelling burgers.
Anyway, Genesis 22,
This passage is actually called Ha'aheda,
which means the binding, the binding of Isaac.
There's a hapax legamanon, that's one of those
fancy words we like to throw out there.
This is a word that only
occurs once in the entire scripture,
and he bound
him. Right?
The word aqidah in Hebrew is related to
the word aqidah
in Arabic,
Aqidah sometimes translated as creed
or beliefs that are binding upon you,
right? So we are told here that God
said to Abraham, take your son, your only
son whom you love,
and Isaac and offer him. Take your son
sorry take your son your only son whom
you love and offer him on Mount Moriah.
Now interestingly
we know that Abraham had
more than one son during this time. His
firstborn son according to the Torah
was
Ishmael
but if you listen to or if you're
familiar with anti Muslim rhetoric or polemics
they'll say yeah but you know Abraham is
commanding Ishmael or sorry
Abraham
to sacrifice the son whom he loves.
Right?
So implying that he doesn't love his other
son. He doesn't love Ishmael.
Right? Which is very interesting because
if you go to the commentaries, rabbinical commentaries
on this verse, 22:2 of Genesis of Beresheet
For example, Rashi,
Rabbi Shlomo Iqsaqi
who is the father of Jewish exegesis,
a European rabbi who died I think the
12th century of the common era.
In his exegesis of the Aqedah passage
he quotes from the Talmud
Sanhedrin
89b
which gives the fuller dialogue because
Orthodox Jews believe in an oral law not
just a written law. Right? On Sinai, Moses
was given a written law which is the
Pentateuch, the Chumash, the 5 books of Moses,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy,
but also was given an oral law which
is sort of a commentary
on the written law. Right? So we can't
ignore the oral law. The fuller
conversation
between Abraham
and God is given in the oral law.
So this is what it says according to
Rashi.
It says God told,
Abraham,
take your son
and then Abraham said
Shanay Benim Yeh Sheli
that's some Hebrew for you. Here's a joke
for you. How does Maimonides make his coffee?
He brews it.
Alright,
sorry these are the jokes.
So Abraham's response was I have 2
sons,
right? Take your son,
it's 2 sons I have
And then God tells him,
your only son.
And then Abraham says,
This is the only son of his mother
meaning Ishmael
Ishmael
Ishmael
God hears
and this is the only son of his
mother
meaning Yitzhak.
It's interesting the names of prophets
they're very they're secrets in the names of
prophets.
Ishmael
yasma'ahualla
means God will hear
and Isaac means
laughter.
Laughter. What does the name mean laughter? Because
according to the Quranic narrative, when, the angels
came to Sarah and Abraham, they said they're
gonna have a son, It says,
She laughed
and said I'm going to have a son.
I'm gonna have a son. I'm an old
woman. Look at my husband. He's a 100
years old. Literally,
he's a 100 years old. So they named
her son Laughter. Anyway, so Abraham says, this
is the only son of his mother, this
is the only son of his mother.
So then God says to Abraham,
the
one whom you love.
Right?
The one whom you love.
Now what is the response of Abraham according
to the oral law in the Talmud
quoted by,
Rabbi Shlomo Yixaki,
the founder of Jewish exegesis
in Sanhedrin 89b,
what does Abraham respond with? He says,
Both of them I love.
Both of them
I love. It's really important when we study
scripture,
the text of a scripture,
we have to study tradition, we have to
study exegesis
because I can quote anything and make anyone
look completely violent. I can take something from
the summa of Aquinas and make him look
like a homicidal maniac, I can quote something
from the Talmud and make the rabbis look
crazy, I I can quote something from the
Quran which is done to me all the
time and say oh religion advocates violence.
You get the point. The first the first
three rules, as I say,
of, hermeneutics or scriptural interpretation is?
Context. Good. Context? What's the second rule? Context.
Context? 3rd rule? Context. Context.
Like the first three rules of real estate?
Location. Location, location, location. Good. Alright.
So he says, Shanayim and Niohayiv, both of
them I love. And then God said to
him, eth Yitzchak,
Isaac, I mean Isaac.
Right? So we glean from the fuller
biblical narrative
that Abraham loves both of his sons. Now
what's interesting
is that
when we look at
the Quranic narrative of the akedah,
the identity of the sun is not given
in the Quran.
This is in Surah
37,
Safat.
We're not given the identity, he's not named
That's all he's
called, a forbearing son.
We don't know his name.
The narrative goes on to say,
Abraham peace be upon him, Ibrahim alaihis salam,
he had a dream
so he goes to his son whoever the
son is and he says
which is very interesting. So he says
my son, You Buneya, oh my dear son,
I have had a dream, and we know
from prophetology,
Islamic
prophetology, that when a prophet has a dream
it is a true dream,
that I've had a dream that I'm sacrificing
you.
What do you think about that?
Very interesting. So in the biblical narrative Abraham
does not tell his son Isaac what's happening
until they're actually going up the hill of
Moriah and then Isaac turns to his father
and says where is the sheep for the
for the for
the offering?
God Himself will provide a sheep. But here
in the Quranic narrative
he tells his son,
What do you think about that? And the
response of his son is
Oh my dear father
do what you've been commanded.
You will find me if God wills from
the patient.
Right? You will find me if God wills
from the patient.
So then, Falama
Aslamah,
the Quran says and then when both of
them
had submitted their wills to God, they had
both entered into a state of total submission,
right? And Abraham was going to slaughter his
son and then the angel cried out,
The angel stopped him and said, Oh Abraham,
you have fulfilled your vision. You have fulfilled
your dream. The command of God was not
to kill your son.
The command of God was for you to
be willing to sacrifice,
the thing that is most dear to you
in this entire world,
right? So this is true sacrifice.
Being able to,
being able
to,
love God
because God deserves to be loved
and knowing that all of these things that
he gives to us
are a gift from God and ultimately the
affair is all about God,
Right?
Now there is an opinion,
right,
that this son is Isaac in the Islamic
tradition.
There are
big Apostolic authorities that is to say big
Sahaba
companions of the Prophet who said this is
Isaac and a lot of Muslims don't know
that
like Imam Ali,
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
Imam Iblujareel
Tabari says in his seminal exegesis
that this son is Isaac.
Why? Now the dominant opinion is that it's
Ishmael.
Later exegetes would say that it's Ishmael. Right?
Because after you have the narrative
of the in the Quran then
you
have,
and we gave glad tidings of Isaac.
Now is this first sort of summarizing
the aqeda narrative or is this moving on
a new idea? There's a difference of opinion.
Right? So there's a genuine difference of opinion
amongst Muslim exegetes who is the sun.
The dominant opinion is that it's Ishmael
because for the Muslim it's not really a
big issue. The ibra, the lesson is the
most important.
Early church fathers,
it was a big deal for them because
the binding of Isaac
is
a Christological
typology
like for origin of Alexandria,
Justin Martyr, it's kind of foreshadowing
what God is going to do to his
own quote unquote son in the new testament,
sacrifice his son. So it's very important for
him to be Isaac, an ancestor of Christ.
And for many Jewish authorities it's also important
that it be Isaac
because he is a progenitor of the Bani
Israel, the Bani Israel, the children of Israel.
But from the Muslim perspective,
it shouldn't be a point of contention.
It doesn't matter from our perspective
who the son was.
Okay,
that's all I wanted to say really
but if we have time for questions
I don't know how we're doing on time.
If you have you can ask me anything
you want.
How's your day going? My day as well.
Thank you very much. Very nice.
I woke up a little bit woke up
today, read a little bit. It's always good
to read
every day.
Should improve every day.
Right? Learn something.
Learn a new vocab word.
Progenitor. Progenitor. Progenitor.
What else?
Any questions?
Alright.
Thank you very much.
Actually, can can you comment a little bit
about why
like focusing on
universal such as sacrifice
may be more important than focusing on like
this particular?
Yeah. The question is why is focusing on
the universal more important than the particular
and whether Yousaf said focusing on sacrifice.
Focusing on the particular the sorry the general
I think is one of the main
discourses if you will or thematic
elements of the Quran
itself.
The Quran says
So Abraham was not a Jew or a
Christian but he was an archetypal monotheist, someone
who submitted his will to God.
A
to establish
Islam
as being this
religion that is not
somehow bound by tribal affiliations
or any of these types of
of identifications.
That this is a universal religion
that Islam is not a religion that at
least how Muslims understand it. Islam is not
an amalgamation
of Judaism, Christianity
and, you know, pre Islamic Arab paganism
but rather that
Islam is a sort of recapturing
of the actual tradition of Abraham
and that's what the Hajj, the pilgrimage is
all about.
Right? The rights of the Hajj, the pilgrimage
go back to Abraham. They don't start with
the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. They
have origins in Abraham the father,
right?
As the Quran says this is the religion
of your father, your spiritual father, Abraham.
Right?
And we find this idea also in the
New Testament in the gospel of John
that you know if you were Abraham's children
you would do as Abraham did in the
gospel of Luke chapter 19 or 18.
Jesus says about Zacchaeus
a very short man who was hiding in
a tree this man too is a son
of Abraham,
right? So this idea of recapturing that original
message of the patriarch
that's the most important that's why you don't
have a lot of name dropping in the
Quran. You don't have a lot of long
genealogies in the Quran.
The the story of Joseph, there's only a
few people named, there's only one woman named
in the entire Quran because the point is
not to name drop,
the point is to teach true lessons that
are transcendental.
We get we get caught up on names
then we become tribal, we become racist,
right? We start to exclude others become exclusionary,
right? We start to identify the other based
on a name or tribal distinction.