Ingrid Mattson – The Fifth Pillar Family of Sacrifice
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Muhammad brothers and sisters.
I am so happy to join you during
these blessed days of Dhul Hijjah.
Thank you to Cambridge Muslim College. May Allah
preserve and expand this wonderful institution
for, giving me the opportunity to join you
today
in remembering
the blessed, blessed family
of Sayna Ibrahim
and Hajjard and Isma'il.
May Allah,
send his peace and blessings upon all of
them.
This is
a story of
uncertainty.
It's a story of oppression. It's a story
of hardship
and separation.
At the same time, it is a story
of
faith,
of growth,
of new connections,
and of resilience.
In sum, it is the story of humanity.
Human beings
are
built for movement.
First, for walking,
we have our upright posture,
our 2 strong legs,
our eyes placed in front of our heads,
so our gaze is directed forward.
And if we lose a leg or 2
legs,
our arms are strong and we are intelligent.
Allah gave us that intelligence.
So we devise other means
of transportation,
wheelchairs
and
other modes of
being able to continue
to move forward to keep us moving.
Allah
in the holy Quran
tells us that the ability to move and
travel
and move around this earth are part of
human dignity.
Allah
says,
we have conferred dignity upon the children of
Adam
and transported them over land and sea
and provided for them substance,
sustenance
out of the good things of life and
favored them far above
most of our creation.
Voluntary movement, of course, is different than forced
migration or displacement.
But even those
who choose to move, for
most of us, it is a difficult choice.
We move because
we want the opportunity to grow,
to realize our potential,
or to be free to live more aligned
with our values and our conscience.
Sayna Ibrahim
was forced to leave his home
and move again
and again.
And then during his life, he had to
continually
travel to visit his divided family.
Saidna Hajar and Ismail
were forced to make a new home.
For Saidna Hejir, this was at least her
second
major displacement.
We do not know the story of
her origins,
but we know it must have been
a terrible thing
that ended up with her being a slave
in Egypt.
Saida Ismail,
he eventually found a home in Mecca,
and he was very young then.
We don't know
exactly what his age was or what he
may have remembered from his earlier life,
but certainly he heard about it as he
got older, this
amazing
and difficult
story
of his young life.
He did find a home in Mecca, and
he became naturalized
to that land.
But perhaps we see the restless spirit in
him
in the fact that he would go out
to the desert
and hunt with a bow and an arrow.
Now a short note about what we know
and don't know about this blessed family.
Certainly,
we have some
guidance from the holy Quran and this is
primarily what we rely
on. And we rely on the authenticated
Hadith,
the reports from the blessed prophet
And in this talk, I will be relying
heavily
on a very long extensive
report,
a recording
of
the story that the prophet Muhammad
told
about
this family and their arrival in Mecca and
what happened after.
It is it is,
you know, one of the
rare very
long
extensive,
stories that the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him, tells, and it's narrated
by, ibn Abbas.
May Allah be pleased with him.
The prophet Muhammad's
blessed,
cousin, of course, and companion.
And there are other narrations,
of various levels
of soundness
that are found both in, in all of
the Hadith collections,
and we'll be referring to some of them
sometimes.
Now we don't want to project
so much of
our own feelings or experience
on a story that happened
many
not many 1000 of years ago. I mean
it may be that Sayna Ibrahim lived in
the second,
millennium,
BCE of the before the common era.
Yet
these are human beings, and their
stories are archetypal.
And they're particularly archetypal
because they are connected
with the archetype of obedience
to God, of the unity of Allah,
the birthplace
of,
sacred spirituality, which is Mecca.
And so there's so much that we can
learn from their stories.
Now, Sayedna Ibrahim, as we say,
was born many 1000 of years ago
in the
in Western Asia, in the what we could
call the watershed
of the 2 great rivers, the Tigris
and the Euphrates.
He,
was apparently born during the time of a
tyrant named
Nimrod.
And there are reports that when he was
born,
astrologers
told him that there would be
a boy born in his time
who would reject,
his faith and who would break the idols.
And so
in this report,
Nimrod
Nimrod orders all of the,
infant boys or baby boys to be killed.
Abraham's mother
hid her pregnancy. She gave birth in a
cave at night
and kept her baby secretly there
and then told people that her baby had
died during childbirth.
We don't know much about her, but in
her we see
that part of Allah's Sunnah, which is to
give
good and clever mothers to prophets.
Think of the mother of Sayna Musa
and what she had to do in order
to keep her son
alive
and then also to reunite with him. Think
of the hardship and difficulty
that
Seydatina
Mariam, the mother of Asa,
went through,
in her
pregnancy and then delivery
of Jesus.
Now,
according to reports, Sayna Ibrahim's
father,
Azar,
sold idols,
and he
made,
Sayna Ibrahim
work in his business, his family business.
But then,
Sayna Ebrahim
went through
a spiritual
awakening.
And we have the beautiful narration in the
Quran
about Zaydna Ibrahim
where he goes through this process
of
trying to find the truth,
seeking the truth,
associating
the
associating
the, you know, heavenly bodies
with,
with Allah,
and then realizing
that that all was false.
And eventually, he comes to the realization
that Allah
is not
one of any of these
creations,
as as brilliant and beautiful as they are,
but he Allah is the creator of all
things. And Sayna Ibrahim
says, indeed,
I turned I have turned my face towards
him who created the heavens and the earth.
I
am one who is a Hanif
in the mold, returning to the mold of
fitra, the fitra
that human beings are all
endowed with, created, and shaped in at the
in their creation by Allah
Now when Sayidina Ibrahim rejects
the idols and the gods, he alienates his
father, he alienates his people. He alienates
the ruler.
He has to go through such trials and
hardship.
He is ordered to be
burned alive,
yet Allah
cools that fire
and make sure
that he is safe. And eventually, Sayna Ibrahim
is saved.
He has his salvation,
and he marries a pious woman.
And, eventually,
they
need to leave. And it may be because
of oppression.
It may be because of famine,
but they do end up in Egypt.
And there,
they encounter more difficulty.
The wife of prophet Ibrahim
Sarah is a beautiful,
elegant, smart, clever woman,
and the Egyptian tyrant
wants to accost her.
And Allah
saves her by paralyzing his hand every time
he reaches out towards her, and it only
is
her dua for his hand to become,
functional again
that
gives him that ability back.
So here we have,
another amazing woman who keeps her cool and
her faith in a very tough situation.
And because of that,
he becomes afraid of her, and he lets
her go, and she goes back to Sayna
Ibrahim.
But Sarah has another sadness, which is that
she has been unable to conceive
a child.
And she decides then to take Hajar, who,
the story says was given to her by
the Egyptian
tyrant
as a, you know, as a as a
gift.
And she decides
to take her maidservant or her female slave
and,
offer her
to Sayna Ibrahim,
in the hopes that he can conceive a
child.
Now
what's interesting here is
that,
you know, what is happening here? Because it's
not
that,
Sara wants Hajjera to just conceive and have
a child and have her own child,
it she is following an ancient code of
the near east. And as far back as
the code of Hammurabi,
we have,
a rule about this, a law about what
we would now call
what we would now call,
a surrogacy.
So
here, this you can see in the Louvre,
the museum in Paris, the original,
stelae with the code of Hammurabi
on it.
And in the,
146 article,
it talks about
surrogacy.
And it says
in particular,
it addresses the issue that what if this
surrogate then starts to irrigate herself or put
herself on the same level
as the free woman because this is a
very status and class based society.
So Article 146 says if a man takes
a wife
and she gives this man a maidservant as
a wife
and she bears him children.
And then
this servant
irrigates herself to equality with the wife because
she has borne him children,
her master
shall not sell her for money, but he
may relegate her to the status of a
slave,
putting basically putting her down
to the level of,
of just a regular working slave.
So
think about this. When we think about the
story, sometimes we may see this through the
eyes of
of of,
you know, Muslims who are living according to
the Sharia
that Allah
reveals in the Quran and the sunnah of
the prophet Muhammad
But this is before that.
And Sayna Ibrahim and his family,
they are Muslims in their tawhid,
yet they are have to abide
by the laws,
the customary laws and the rules of the
lands in which they live
as long as they're living in there or
else they have to keep moving. And they
do that. They keep trying, but this is
something,
you know, an arrangement
that is
no longer permissible in Islam,
in in,
the Islam that is given to us, the
Sharia of the final prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
but it's a situation there. And we see
we see in some of the narrations that
some of this dynamic holds. We don't know
exactly.
There are stories in the Bible in Genesis,
and then there are stories in the Quran,
And we do not know to what extent
the stories
in Genesis have any accuracy. In fact, in
some cases, as you'll see,
as we'll discuss soon,
they are,
in violation
or contradiction to the Quranic story and to
the narration
of the prophet Muhammad
so we would reject those narrations in that
sense. So we have to be very careful
about what we,
say we know about the situation.
What we do know
is that for,
whatever reason,
eventually, Allah orders,
Sayedne Ibrahim
to take
Hajar and Ismael
away from Palestine where they're living because after
Egypt,
they move to Palestine and there's in Ibrahim
becomes,
you know, more settled. He is
he gains,
flocks. He has becomes quite prosperous.
He,
is very well known above everything for his
generosity.
So when we think about, say, Ibrahim, we
really associate him with generosity,
honoring the guest, honoring the traveler.
His tent is open. Anyone who passes by
is welcomed.
So this is the characteristic of Saini Ibrahim
and subhanAllah. It is one of the things
that we see
that continually
is is present until today
among among Muslims in general, I would say.
I mean, I've spoken to so many people
who have just, you know, non Muslims who
have traveled
to the Middle East on a trip or
something, and the one thing that you will
always
hear is how generous and hospitable
Muslims are.
And I feel really proud to be part
of a community
that continues such,
an ancient
sunnah, the sunnah of Ibrahim.
So we should really feel that connection with
him.
So in any case,
so we have Sinai Ibrahim,
but he is now
having to uproot
Hajjur and Ismail
and bring her to Mecca.
And here, I want to highlight
the difference in the the story in Genesis
and the story
that is told by the blessed prophet, which
we rely on, of course, prophet Mohammed says
hadith,
and notice the differences. And it's important because
noticing the differences tells us a lot about
what it means to be able to
to present yourself as who you are and
your own story and own his history. You
know, Muslims,
not just in this age, but certainly in
this age, are subject
to being
characterized by other people. You know, other people
are telling us who we are, what we
believe,
predominantly
through an Islamophobic
lens or a stereotypical
lens.
And it's really important that we always reclaim
the right to tell our own story and
who we are. So let's go to that,
let's go to that
narration in Genesis
and see what it says.
Here is a
painting
from,
Guercino,
an Italian,
painter of 17th century,
showing the biblical
and the European
view of
of what happens at this moment. And this
is entitled
Abraham
casting out Hadjard and Ismael.
He's just sending her away, and we see
an angry Sarah in the background.
And that is the version. And let me
read
the version
that is in Genesis.
Early the next morning,
Ibrahim or Abraham
took some food and a skin of water
and gave them
to Hajar.
He set them on her shoulders and then
sent her off with the boy.
She went on her way and wandered in
the desert of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone,
she put the boy under one of the
bushes. Then she went off and sat down
about a bow shot away, for she thought,
I cannot watch the boy die.
And as she sat there she began to
sob.
God heard the boy crying and the angel
called to Hajjid from heaven and said to
her, what is the matter Hajjid?
Do not be afraid. God has heard the
boy crying as he lies there. Lift the
boy up and take him by the hand,
for I will make him into a great
nation.
Then God opened her eyes and she saw
a well of water.
So she went and filled the skin with
water and gave the boy a drink.
So here is the
version of the story in Genesis,
and that painting
really shows that the European
image, the Christian, the Jewish, the biblical image,
it is so different
than the story that the prophet
Muhammad tells about his mother, about his
grandmother,
the matriarch
of his city, the matriarch of Islam.
So let's hear that.
Ibrahim
brought her and her son, Ishmael, where she
was suckling him,
To a place near the Kaaba,
under a tree on the spot of Zamzam,
at the highest place there.
During those days there was no one in
Mecca nor was there any water.
So he made them sit over there and
placed near them a leather bag containing some
dates and a small skin of water.
And then he set off homeward.
His mother followed him saying,
Yeah, Ibrahim,
where are you going?
Are you leaving us in this valley where
there is no person whose company we may
enjoy,
nor is there anything here.
She repeated that to him many times but
he did not look back at her. Then
she asked him,
has God ordered you to do this?
He said yes.
She said
then he will not neglect us And she
turned back.
Well,
Ibrahim
proceeded onward
and on reaching Thania where they could not
see him, he faced the
Kaaba and raised his hands,
and invoked Allah with the following
prayer.
Here we have the prayer
of saint Ibrahim that is
in Surah Ibrahim in the Quran
where he says he turns back and he
prays for his family
saying, oh, our lord, I have made some
of my offspring dwell in a valley without
cultivation.
By your sacred house in order, oh, lord,
that they
may offer prayer perfectly.
So fill the hearts of people with love
towards them and provide them with fruits so
that they might give thanks.
So what is the difference here?
We see
that
our mother Hajar
is not,
you know, a pathetic,
incapable,
oppressed woman just collapsed sitting there crying.
No.
She
first questions
her husband.
And
it's so interesting because one of the themes
that we see in the life of the
prophet Muhammad
is how he distinguished
between his orders as a prophet
and his own preferences.
And the companions of the blessed Sahaba, they
learned to even ask the blessed prophet,
yeah Yeah.
Is this from you or is this from
Allah? Before they questioned his orders.
And we see that that,
that our mother Hajar, she knew to do
that.
So she asked him,
and she came to the realization. She knew,
of course, that Zainab Ibrahim was a prophet.
She had seen the miraculous things that had
happened.
And so then it occurred to her, okay.
This must be from Allah. Is it from
Allah? And when he said yes,
she is the one who immediately she accepted
it, and she
went
to business. She turned around and said, okay.
Now what am I going to do? And
it's just so beautiful when you read the
many different narrations of it. After Sayedne Ibrahim
says, yes, god, I ordered this
me to do this,
then she in in numerous narrations, she says
different things like, well, he will not leave
us, or she says,
like,
You know, that is enough for me. Or
she says,
You know, I am pleased with Allah's command.
So you see this active,
acceptance on her.
And
and when Sayna Ibrahim prays for them, he
says, so they may offer prayer perfectly so
that everything that Sayna Hajjar does after this
is really part of,
you know, her worship and her faith,
and she is rewarded for that.
So she she knows she is in Allah's
hands,
and she proceeds then,
once she is in in Allah's hands
to,
get to work.
And that is where, you know, she begins
running back and forth.
But before we go to the rest of
her story,
let's just take a moment to think about
Sayna Ibrahim.
So what about him?
In doing this action,
he too is
only submitting to Allah's will.
But as a husband and as a father
it must be difficult and he worries about
them.
He leaves without speaking and perhaps he can't.
You know, he's he it's so difficult
for him even though he knows this is
Allah's command, but still
he's a human
and he is is,
you know, he doesn't want to be separated
from them.
But when Sayna Hijad arrives at her own
conclusion, he can affirm
her.
And he makes the supplication. And this is
what we always have to remember that when
we're in a situation where
we cannot help our loved ones,
There may be someone in our family who
we've tried to help or we would love
to help, but we're incapable of doing it
for some reason.
But we can always pray for them. We
can always
lift up our hands and pray for them.
And we should never forget that. We should
never say,
I can't do anything. There's nothing I can
do. There's no way I can help them.
No. We can always
pray.
And I also think about this separation
with respect to our contemporary time and think
about because of
this horrible
brokenness that has happened in the world
in the wake of European colonialism
and then these nation states
and all of the borders that have been
placed up and the extraction
of goods
from colonized and post colonized lands
and how people cannot make a living. They
don't have land anymore. They don't have an
ability
to be able to sustain their families where
they are, and so they have to leave
their families.
Think of all of those from
Bangladesh or the Philippines who are working in
the Gulf, all of those men who have
to be away
from their families. Or
think of how
so many of the Muslims
who are in Europe originally came as as
single men trying to make a living for
their families and some of them still
are. And those men are forced to be
away from their families.
They're lonely, they're abused,
they're, you know, tempted
to seek
comfort
in all sorts of ways that are
unlawful and unhealthy.
Now, saying that Ibrahim's separation of course was
different,
but
he knew
what he was doing, he knew this was
the order from Allah,
He was,
protected,
you know, and guided,
in a way that we are not.
Yet I want us just to be able
to connect with the human aspect of this
story
so that we also can continue to have
empathy
for the men of the Ummah of
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
because it is very challenging for so many
of them.
And it's really important that for those of
us who have settled in a land,
that
we
offer the hospitality
of our father, Ibrahim,
to all of those who are displaced
and,
have had to migrate.
So
let's return to,
to the story
of Hajar
because the rest is really about
her story.
So we know that,
after Sayna Ibrahim,
that he,
you know, she went to do her her
business,
that she
made this great effort. She ran
She ran with the,
like, with great effort
back and forth,
looking, you know, going to the hilltops to
look to see
where is the water gonna come, where is
her salvation gonna come, You know, where is
someone who's gonna bring bring supplies?
And this shows the limitations of our imagination,
all of us human beings.
We we believe that the only way out
of our current situation is if
this particular thing happens.
She would never have imagined
that would what would happen is Allah would
open up,
a spring of water right under the feet
of her child.
But she gets to work. She does what
what
what she,
you know, what she can to improve her
situation.
And with that great faith and that great
effort, Allah brings her something
better, so much better than she ever could
have imagined.
And I love the part of the story
where as she's running back and forth and
each time she runs, she checks on her
son and sees him declining in his health.
And then she thinks she hears something, and
she says to herself she says hush
to herself,
which is sort of the inverse of hush.
And I I find that very poignant because
she's all alone.
She's talking to herself. You know, how when
you're in that situation and she's
she's she says, you know, to herself, be
quiet, hush to herself.
And she calls out, hey. Like, whoever you
are, I you made me hear your voice,
so
so do you have something for me? And
that is when,
when the angel
comforts her and tells her that they will
be okay. The angel,
And the water begins to gush.
So here is
here is the
after.
Here is the after difficulty.
Here is the that
comes from
Allah
and it is flowing out.
Now
here is also a very human moment in
the story because as the water is gushing
out, what does she do?
Her mother, Hijad, she rushes to
to make a kind of like like basin
out of,
the mud that has been created by the
water flowing in order to try to capture
it and and preserve it because
she's obviously thinking, who knows how long this
water will flow? I have to save some
of it.
And that is just such a relatable moment.
You know, we all know that our sustenance
comes from Allah,
yet when we get it,
we still want to keep some back. We
wanna store it and hoard it, afraid that
it will disappear.
Pure tawakkil,
pure constant ongoing tawakkal is rare.
You know, the blessed prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam would give away any bit of food
he had in his house,
and there was seldom any food left over
in his house. But if there was a
morsel,
he would give it away before he slept.
Never saving something for tomorrow, just relying on
Allah
to bring him what he could. Nevertheless,
of course,
our mother is
of such a high station.
You know, she accepted
a perilous situation,
having faith that Allah would provide for her.
The angel
of Revelation,
Jibreel, spoke to her. A spring miraculously
appeared in her presence
and her actions became the basis for one
of the world's oldest,
perhaps the oldest
continuously
performed
sacred rituals in the world, which is the
running between Safa and Marwa, Isai.
I mean, this is a ritual that continued
even during the Jahiliya.
That is so amazing to think about.
Hajar is the founder of a ritual practice.
She's the founder of a city.
With her son later marrying a local woman,
she becomes a mother of a new people.
So the story of Islam is one that
begins with a matriarch
and a patriarch.
Each have their roles. Each sets the foundation
for rights and for the city
as saying Ibrahim will later when he comes
back to build the Kaaba with Ishmael.
So this is this is a religion of
men and women
as we see and as we reenact
in the Hajj
and
in the hungra.
And there's another note that I wanna make
here, and let me
let me just get back and move to
this,
to another
picture here,
which is the role of women as waterkeepers.
Because what happens
is that
what happens
is that,
is that then
later as they settle there, the the,
you know, Bedouin,
the tribe of Jorhom
will come by.
Well, they'll be attracted to that place because
they see some birds, and they know the
birds
only appear where there is water. And so
they're curious. Is there water? And they they
come, and there they see
Hajjid, our mother Hajjid,
sitting comfortably by the water. Already, she's made
this her her home.
So there she is encamped beside the water,
and they're amazed. And they say to her,
will you let us stay with you? Will
you let us settle with you?
And she
also, who embodies
that
hospitality and generosity,
that she's learned from Saidi Ibrahim says yes.
Yes. You may settle here.
But
you will have no right to control
the water.
She is the guardian of the water. She
remains as long as she is alive
the guardian of the water. And I think
that's just
such an amazing detail
because
across the world, we see that in traditional
religions
and traditional spiritualities.
Women are always guardians
of the water.
In,
the Americas, North and South America where I
live,
that is,
there are so many interesting
practices and and rituals that indigenous
people engaged in
having women as the,
in charge of water governance and as in
charge of the water.
That is something that was completely disrupted by
British colonialism
that brought in a patriarchal governance system, completely
pushed women out of any positions of authority,
but women are reclaiming it. This is a
picture of some Hopi women
who are cleaning and opening up a spring
that,
that is the water source for their community.
So you see and this is probably
similar to the kind of, you know, how
Zamzam looked when it first opened.
You see just some some water bubbling up
or coming seeping out from the earth.
And
what's interesting with, you know, and this is
a place where I find a real connection
with indigenous people,
in in Canada, where I live now, or
in America,
which is, my second home,
is that they're reclaiming
this,
role for women as the water keepers or
as the protectors of water.
And we see that in many of the
protests where there is oil explanation or pipe
pipelines are going in or other forms of
very aggressive development that is just ruining
the,
the biosphere,
ruining
the the earth, you know, making it inhabitable
for any other creatures,
that women are standing in front of those
water bodies
and saying no, that they will protect them.
So it's just it's really amazing, and I
would
I would love to think about
the ways that that Muslim women
can reconnect
more also with that example
of and that that sunnah,
in a way, of,
of our mother,
Hajar,
of being the one who says, this water,
water gives life.
Life is impossible
without water,
and we are going to guard it for
everyone, not just for all people,
but for all of the living
beings of creation,
for which we have responsibility
as
as the as the people who are the
caretakers
of creation.
So,
a final
note about our mother Hajjid
is that,
the prophet Mohammed Alaihi Salam says that
that when Joram settled there in the city,
Hajar own Ismail,
she was so happy.
She really
enjoyed
those people's company.
And and I just love
thinking about the fact that she,
you know, she found her place. She found
a home after a very difficult life, a
life of
challenges and displacement.
And
she has her place
and she welcomes others. And in that, she
finds
new relations and new friends and a new
community.
And I think that's really beautiful. I think
of all of the women I know in
the Muslim community who've had to move so
many times and have left their,
their homeland or in our new places. And
when I see them, especially
as they get older,
having
a community and having friends and having
the community
recognize and honor them, and we really should
do more of that. I would love to
see,
you know,
our community
recognizing and acknowledging
the the
the wisdom and the experience,
of the older women in our community. And
I don't mean scholars. I mean I mean
ordinary women who have
worked hard to find,
to make a home for their families, whatever
their family looks like. I just think it's
it's really beautiful. And she so she lived
the rest of her life in that city
and and died there.
Now
we've spoken a lot about our mother Hajjar,
and I really did want to focus on
her so much because,
you know, her story is is key to
the Islamic story. Her story is key
to the founding of Mecca,
for the
pilgrimage.
She is an archetype for all of us,
men and women,
women and men,
and there's so many things we can learn
from her. But a few more words
about,
the other family members.
So when we think about,
Saydna,
Ismail
and his life
and what happens to him,
We know there are so many,
other events in his life,
and
one of them, of course, is the potential,
you know, sacrifice so called sacrifice.
Now Muslim scholars
have long disagreed,
over which of the sons actually
was,
was taken by Sayna,
Ibrahim.
Was it Ismael or was it Ishaap?
So there is actually a disagreement
among early Muslim scholars.
And the important thing to note is that
whichever son it was, and I inclined towards
the view that it is Ismail
because he was born first and just the
way the story unfolds,
in the Quran and sorta,
So it seems it seems to me, but
I don't have,
absolute knowledge. And if the scholars disagreed, I
can't say that it's necessarily
one or the other. But I would like
to turn back to the
the the difference between
the story in the Quran and the story
in Genesis, the biblical story.
I mean, the biblical story, the story in
Genesis of the so called binding
of Isaac
is terrifying.
I mean, in this story,
Sayidni Ibrahim,
basically has to he he's not transparent.
He has to trick Isaac.
And and and listen to what what
what it says. So Genesis 22 says, and
Isaac said to his father, Ibrahim, because his
father told him, oh, we're going to go
make a sacrifice.
So this Haq, Isaac says, my father.
And and Zayd and Ibrahim says, yes, son.
This hack
says, the the fire and the wood are
here, but where is the lamb for the
burnt offering?
And Abraham replied,
God will provide the lamb for a burnt
offering, my son.
Then he built an altar,
laid the wood,
tied up his son,
and laid him on the wood.
Then
took the knife out to slaughter him. Then
God stopped him. I mean, this is a
really terrifying story.
No wonder people talk about,
you know, how how horrible, you know, patriarchal
authority is. If that's what a patriarch is,
we should all
reject that. But what does Allah
say in the Quran?
In the Quran, Allah
says that
Sayna Ibrahim
consulted
his son
when he reached maturity.
So balaga.
Balaga means that he now is mokelef.
He is
he is,
intellectually
and morally capable of making a decision.
So,
he became old enough
to join his father
in his work, and that means in his
physical work and in his
worship, his his acts of worship.
And Satan
Abraham says,
oh, my dear son,
it's so loving, so tender.
My dear son, I saw that while I
was sleeping, meaning I had a divinely sent
vision,
that I should sacrifice you. What do you
think?
And he replies, oh, my father,
do what you have been ordered, and you
will find me, God willing, among the patient,
among the sawbarim.
And then they both submitted, Allah
says,
in verse 103, Ayah 103, this is of
Safed.
Then when they both had submitted himself and
he had lain him down,
then a law stopped them. So here we
have,
you know, this repeat of what we see
with with our our mother, Hijat, as well
that it's that it's this,
accepting
of and decision
to accept
what Allah
has given, of submitting themselves
as the woman, as the the son
to this.
Now they know that
Zena Ibrahim is a prophet
and certainly,
Ibrahim's son has seen by this time all
of the amazing and miraculous things and how
Allah has guided Sayna Ibrahim.
So he has that confidence in God and
he has that confidence
in God's prophet. He's not doing this
as out of,
filial piety,
that he's just obeying his father. And this
is where we have to be very careful
when we tell these stories,
because too often these stories are told through
an authoritarian
lens
and are distorted by
the desires and
prejudices
of the people who tell the stories.
I have heard some people say
that the story, the moral of the story
of Saydney Ibrahim's dream and Ismail's submitting to
it shows that children have to obey their
parents
no matter what they ask them.
No, that is wrong.
That is spiritually abusive.
Sayidna Ibrahim was a prophet,
and there are no other prophets after Hotham
and Nabiin, Sayidna Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So no father who is alive today
is has that authority. That's the first thing.
2nd, Zaineb Rahim,
he did not trick his son.
Like the story in Genesis, he did not
attack him. He did not force him to
do anything.
He did not have the authority to take
his life as a father.
He was fully transparent,
sharing his vision and asking him what to
do. He
knew about
his own miraculous
origins and survival,
and that his father was a prophet chosen
by God. And for that reason he submitted
to Allah's command.
Similarly, Hajjid was not
abandoned by her husband, rather
she was ordained by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to be established as the matriarch
of the Meccans
and of the Muslim people.
Sayyidna Ibrahim
and his family,
they lived in many lands. They had to
follow the laws and customs to the extent
that it did not
conflict with Tawhid.
But we Muslims, we do not follow the
code of Hammurabi
or the customs of the ancient Hebrews
or the authority of the patriarchal prophets of
Israel.
Rather, we establish the limits set by Allah
with the Quran and the teachings of the
last prophet
so the sacred law limits the authority of
any,
you know, the authority that any person has
over any other authority.
A mother over a child, a father over
a child,
a ruler over the people,
a sheikh over his students.
No one is allowed to abuse or exploit
others.
Any power
or authority we have over others is limited
and legitimate
only for the benefit of those people, and
that benefit has to be objectively
comprehensible,
not some kind of
secret hidden benefit that goes against the sharia.
So it's really important,
to add that.
So we have that story of the sacrifice,
but then later we have also
a beautiful story where Sayna Ibrahim comes back,
and he says
to his son,
he says,
Allah has ordered me
to,
to build a place of worship.
And,
so so Ibrahim, who's who's away, he's in
Palestine, he comes back to to,
the area,
and he sees his son Ishmael
under a tree near Zamzam sharpening his arrows
because remember he was a hunter.
And when he saw his father, he rose
up to welcome him and greet him. And
his father said, Oh, Ismail, Allah has given
me an order. And Ismael says,
do what your Lord has ordered you.
And Sayyidina Ibrahim says,
will you help me?
And Isma'il says, I will help you.
And
this is to build the Kaaba as a
place of worship.
And once it's built,
then
Allah
orders Sayyidina Ibrahim
to proclaim the Kaaba as a place of
pilgrimage.
And Ibrahim says,
who will hear me?
And because there aren't other believers in that
area and Allah says,
just proclaim
it is my responsibility
to ensure that that call is heard.
And how many millions of people answer that
call
today
or want to. 100 of millions of people
want to answer that call today.
And it is said during those early days,
it was stones,
trees,
hill, and dust
that responded,
labayk Allahuma
labayk All
of creation
that,
responds
to Allah's
call,
who are alive
and who submit themselves
to Allah
And so
we should never,
you know, as much as even we miss,
certainly, we miss the,
you know, the opportunity
for those who who might have the opportunity
to go for,
for Hajj or for Umrah.
And some people say, look, you know,
the the Haram is empty. No. It's never
empty.
All of creation
is still there.
All of the creatures of creation
are still there
saying,
And we, among all of creation,
simply have the choice. Are we going to
say it, or are we not going to
say it?
So this is only part of, you know,
some of the story of these
this amazing family,
our
our our, you know,
our family
to whom we look for
examples
of faith, of submission, of piety,
they did not have easy lives. They had
challenging lives.
But
they
relied on Allah
They relied on their intelligence,
on their strength, on their wit, any of
their capacities that Allah
gave them
to,
to survive as believers.
Part of that
survival,
you know, one of those tools was simply
movement,
leaving, going to a better place.
And by doing so
and being capable of doing so, they maintained
their dignity.
And when they arrived at a place,
they gave, even if they had little, such
great hospitality.
And these are such important messages
for
for our age.
And that when we do get to a
place and we do find our sustenance there,
just as our mother,
Hajar,
you know, was given this this life sustaining
water,
she did not allow anyone
to take it
for themselves,
but ensure that it was available for others.
So that is also our role for those
of us who have found some security and
safety, not only
hospitality, but really to make sure that
that we work to,
you know, bring justice
to a place
and make sure that others
also have their opportunity
to live and survive
and raise their families.
Thank you for joining
me today to remember this blessed family.
I pray that allows
you to enjoy all of the blessings
of this
holy month and these holy days.
May Allah
guide and protect your families
and open doors of
of ease and sustenance
for you
and allow you to be joined together
in faith and love.
Assalamu alaikum.
Support the next generation of Muslim thinkers by
donating today
atcambridgemissomcollege.ac.uk.