THE STORY OF ABRAHAM(IBRAHIM a.s) AND ISHMAEL (ISMAIL a.s)

My love you, my children. Today I will tell you the story of Abraham(a.s) and Ishmael(a.s), may the peace of God be upon them.

Abraham (a.s) was sent as a prophet to show the people God’s  good actions and His power, His qudrat. And when Abraham(a.s) was thrown into the fire, he demonstrated the strength of his iman, his absolute faith, certitude, and determination, to the people, to the angels, and to the other prophets.

Then one day God gave him a son named Ishmael(a.s). Abraham(a.s) had much love and affection for his son, and his attachment grew stronger and stronger every second.

Allah looked at that attachment and said,” Abraham , you must sacrifice your son to Me. I will tell you exactly how to do it. Your eyes must be unwavering, your body should not tremble, and your heart should not waver. Your eyes and nose should not even become moist. Your face should not become drawn. You must make this sacrifice with a very happy face. You must look directly at your son, and your son must look at you. First sprinkle a little water on him and say, ‘Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim: You are the Creator, the Protector, and the Nourisher.’ Then, while looking into your son’s eyes, you must take the knife, place it at his throat, and draw it across his throat three times.

As you are wielding the knife, your hand should not shake, your fingers should not tremble, and you should not hold on to anything for support. Your heart must not beat any faster. You must have a very blissful smile on your face and then kill your son.” God gave him all these conditions to abide by, saying, “Abraham , this is the way you must sacrifice your son to Me, and you must understand the meaning  of this sacrifice”

Abraham (a.s) felt disheartened as he thought of what he must do, but his son said, “O father, no matter how long I live, I may never again come to state in which God will accept me. If I do not go to Him the moment He calls me, I may never receive such a chance again. Therefore put aside your sorrow, and sacrifice me according to the word of Allah. If you do not, I will sacrifice myself to Him.” This is what Ishmael(a.s) told his father.

When Abraham (a.s) saw the determination, certitude, and faith in his son’s heart, he said, “All right, Ishmael, I will sacrifice you according to the will of God. I will take you to the mountain where He said the sacrifice must be performed.” And so together they climbed the mountain.

Just then satan came. “Abraham, are you a man? Are you a father? Don’t you have and mercy? God may be God, but this is your own born son. How can you kill him? Don’t you have any compassion? What kind of God would ask a thing like this?”

Abraham (a.s) shouted, “Go away, satan!” and threw a stone at him. But satan came back, so Abraham (a.s) threw another stone at him. He came back a third time and again Abraham (a.s) threw a stone and yelled, “Go away, satan!”

Then, as Allah had commanded, the father sprinkled water on his son and prepared to sacrifice him with a smiling face. Suddenly he heard the sound of Allah commanding him, “Stop, Abraham! I have now accepted your son Ishmael. I am sending you a lamb to sacrifice in his place.” And so Abraham (a.s) sacrificed the lamb instead.

My grandchildren, we must understand the meaning within this story. You can read about this in the Qur’an, in the hadith, and in the Bible, but these are only outer(zahiri) meanings. We have to go much deeper. We have to understand the reason why God told Abraham (a.s) to cut his son’s throat. We have to understand this ‘ilm, with the divine knowledge which is the wealth of God. We have to reflect upon it with the ‘ilm within ‘ilm, and wisdom within wisdom. We must understand the meaning of God within God, the soul within the soul, and duty within duty. We must undertsand these inner meanings. God created man as the most exalted creation, as the one capable of understanding. He has said that man will know things which even angels will not know. And because he has been endowed with this wisdom, man must always look for the inner meanings.

My love you, my grandchildren. Look at this story with your wisdom and think about it more and more deeply. Is God a torturer or a killer? Would He want human sacrifice? Would He ever tell us to sacrifice the lives of others? No, Allah is not a murderer. It is not His duty to accept sacrifices. He is the life within all life. He is the wisdom within all wisdom and the love within all love. He is compassion within compassion. He is the Father who protects all lives. Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim: He creates, protects, and nourishes. That is His duty. He dwells in all lives. Would the One who dwells within all lives be a murderer? If He were, He would be killing Himself, because He truly is within all lives. Is God going to commit suicide? No. This is only a story, an outer example. The inner meaning is very different.

If we ponder with our wisdom, we will understand that Abraham (a.s) was the messenger of God, His respresentative on earth. There was no other prophet at that time. God sent this one prophet at that particular time for all the children of Adam(a.s) in all four directions: east, west, north and south. And as the one prophet to all, it was important for the sake of justice that he sees all lives as equal to his own. He had to love all lives as he loved his own, to feel all hunger as he felt his own, to treat all illnesses as his own, and to know the sorrow of others as he knew his own. He had to be able to give God’s love and justice equally to all.

But Abraham (a.s) grew more and more attached to his son, even more than he was to God. He developed this selfish attachment, and because of it he was unable to be impartial if someone fought with his son or became his son’s enemy. He could not settle such a dispute with real justice. He loved his son so much that he was unable to consider all lives equally. He saw others as less important than Ishmael(a.s). He could not see the worth and plenitude of other lives, and he was no longer able to love God in the proper way. Thus his justice, affection, good conduct, and equality toward others was diminishing.

Through his attachment to his son, Abraham (a.s) was beginning to form a connection to the world, to karma. Illusion and blood ties were starting to change him so that he could no longer act according to the justice and qualities of God. This is why God demanded that Abraham (a.s) make a sacrifice. But it was not really his son that was to be killed, it was his attachment. “O Abraham,” God said, “you haven’t seen the sorrow of others as your own sorrow. I have sent you as My prophet, and yet I do not see any difference between the relationship you have with your son and the relationship an ignorant man has with his son. Because of this favoritism, you will swerve from justice. This is why My commandment came, in order to cut your selfish love. You can only show justice if you have no attachment for anything but God.”

My grandchildren, if you have the qualities of God and if you love all equally, you can be just towards all lives. But if you have blood ties, you cannot be just. This is why God asked Abraham (a.s) to sacrifice his son. As soon as that state of readiness came within Abraham (a.s), God said, “O Abraham, I accept your son.. I am sending you a lamb, which represents all the joys and sorrows you have gathered on earth through your attachments. These would have gone ahead of you and awaited you on Judgment Day, but I am sending them in the form of this lamb. Now sacrifice those joys and sorrows. Be ready!”

Thus, in order to correct him and to reestablish God’s qualities, His justice, His peace, and His equality within His prophet, God told Abraham (a.s) to cut away his attachments, his karma, his blood ties, his love and his selfishness. Only then could he reached a state of peace where he could show equality toward all lives.  

My grandchildren, think about this story. If you are in a state of selfish attachment, your verdict in any situation will be contrary to justice. If you are a judge and your wife has a fight with a neighbor’s wife, you will always be on your wife’s side. If your son fights with a nighbor’s son, your decision will favor your son. In a conflict between your mother and someone else’s mother, you will not be able to use that sword of justice. No matter what situation arises, you cannot be just if you have such attachments.

That is why Abraham (a.s) had to learn this lesson. He was not really asked to kill Ishmael, he was asked to kill his own attachment. Once he did that, God accept Ishmael who had reached a perfect state.

This story explains true justice. Is it right for a prophet to be unjust? Is this not contrary to how a prophet should act? Should a messenger of God show favoritism? If he did, how would he differ from anyone else? How could God’s justice be conducted? What would God’s love be like? How could the qualities of God be given to the people? We must really think about this. We have to understand the meanings within the story. This happened to Prophet Abraham (a.s) in order to cut something away and take him beyond it. He had to keep what was good and discard what was bad.

My grandchildren, this is true for a judge, an ordinary man, a man of wisdom, or anyone. This story can teach you to cut away your own mistakes, so that you can go beyond your present state to a higher one. That is the lesson in a story such as this.

My love you, my grandchildren. Once we begin to undertsand the commandments of God and the actions of a prophet, we have to try to rise up to the level of God. Like that, as we begin to understand the words of a wise man, a gnāni, we have to see the state that he is in and try to attain it. Unless we are in that same state, even if we know everything from sunrise to sunset, we cannot fully understand anything. As long as we are not in this state, we must take ourselves back to the time and situation in wich he spoke, and consider the circumstances very carefully. Then the meaning will come to us. This is how we must study the explanation of divine knowledge, of ‘ilm. Without doing that we will not understand the words of a wise man.

My grandchildren, my love you. We must undertsand this. The world has many different opinions about what has happened to the prophets. And some people have lost their faith in the prophets because of these interpretations. The words of the prophets and the words of God are such that we have to consider the time and the place in which they were spoken and the circumstances under which they ocurred. We have to actually put ourselves there and try to find the inner meaning. Otherwise we will not understand. My love you, my children. May God give you good thoughts and good wisdom.

M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (k.s)

Source:  Bawa Muhaiyaddeen(k.s) , “Come to the Secret Garden: Sufi Tales of Wisdom”, p.160-165

Published by special permission from Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship , www.bmf.org

SOME RELATED VERSES FROM THE QUR’AN:

As-Saffat [37/100-110]:

 رَبِّ هَبْ لِي مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ

100. “O my Lord grant me a righteous (son)”

 فَبَشَّرْنَاهُ بِغُلَامٍ حَلِيمٍ

101. “So We gave him the good news of a boy, possessing forbearance.”

 مَّا بَلَغَ مَعَهُ السَّعْيَ قَالَ يَا بُنَيَّ إِنِّي أَرَى فِي الْمَنَامِ أَنِّي أَذْبَحُكَ فَانظُرْ مَاذَا تَرَى قَالَ يَا أَبَتِ افْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ سَتَجِدُنِي إِن شَاء اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ

102. “And when (his son) was old enough to walk with him, (Abraham ) said: O my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must sacrifice thee. So look, what thinkest thou? He said: O my father! Do that which thou art commanded. Allah willing, thou shalt find me of the steadfast”

 فَلَمَّا أَسْلَمَا وَتَلَّهُ لِلْجَبِينِ

103. “So when they both submitted and he threw him down uponhis forehead,”

 وَنَادَيْنَاهُ أَنْ يَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ

104. “We called unto him: O Abraham:”

 قَدْ صَدَّقْتَ الرُّؤْيَا إِنَّا كَذَلِكَ نَجْزِي الْمُحْسِنِينَ

105. “Thou hast already fulfilled the vision thus indeed do We reward those who do right.”

 إِنَّ هَذَا لَهُوَ الْبَلَاء الْمُبِينُ

106. “For this was obviously a trial”

 وَفَدَيْنَاهُ بِذِبْحٍ عَظِيمٍ

107. “And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice:”

 وَتَرَكْنَا عَلَيْهِ فِي الْآخِرِينَ

108. “And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times:”

 سَلَامٌ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ

109. “Peace and salutation to Abraham”

كَذَلِكَ نَجْزِي الْمُحْسِنِينَ 

110. “Thus indeed do We reward those who do right”