“And afterwards we inspired thee: Follow the religion of Abraham, as one by nature upright. He was not of the idolaters.” (The Qur’an, 16:123).
Millions of believers consider Hazrat Abraham to be their “father.” This is the greatest honor that could ever come to a mortal man, but it was necessary for Allah to test his faith carefully. His life story is an example to us, for our own human experience is encapsulated in his fantastic struggle with doubt and despair. For us to “follow the religion of Abraham” requires that we understand his experience.
One of Abraham’s descendants, the apostle Paul, was especially inspired by his faith. In the letters which he wrote to fellow-believers he appealed to them to have a faith like that of Abraham. One letter, written to the church at Rome, described the faith of Abraham as “who against hope, believed in hope.” (Romans 4:18) This refers to the fact that for many years he hoped for a son, according to Allah’s promise, when really there seemed to be no human hope because both he and his wife were too old. The struggle to believe went on for decades, long after most people would have given up their faith in God.
Allah’s promise was, “Your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will name him Isaac.” “Abraham bowed down with his face touching the ground, but he began to laugh when he thought, ‘Can a man have a child when he is a hundred years old? Can Sarah have a child at ninety?’”
Abraham had a son by the Egyptian girl Hagar. This son, Ishmael, was blessed by God. He had twelve sons, each of which became a prince of a nation. When God promised the birth of Isaac by Sarah, he added:
“‘I have heard your request about Ishmael, so I will bless him and give him many children and many descendants. … I will make a great nation of his descendants. But I will keep my covenant with your son Isaac, who will be born to Sarah about this time next year.’” (Genesis 17:15-21)
The honoured Qur’an says:
His [Abraham’s] wife Sarah was standing by, and she laughed; and We promised her Isaac, and after Isaac, Jacob. She said, Alas! shall I bear a son, who am old; this my husband also being advanced in years? Verily this would be a wonderful thing. (“Hud,” surah 11)
The lesson of faith was impressed on Abraham’s heart: when Allah makes a promise, he is the one to keep it; Abraham’s own works are of no merit. He must not think of himself as in any sense equal with Allah. The covenant which Allah made with Abraham is his promise to Abraham, and he expects no promise in return — all he asks is faith to believe his promise.
After the great Flood of Noah, we read that Allah made a covenant with the birds and the beasts,” (Genesis 9:9) but Allah did not ask the birds and animals to promise him anything! Our human covenants consist of two parties making mutual promises. Allah’s covenant is his promise alone, and man’s part is to believe it. This was the lesson that Allah must impress upon Abraham, so he can truly be the “father of the faithful,” that is, of those who are “full” of faith.
To help Abraham remember that righteousness comes by faith and not by works, Allah gave him the significant sign of circumcision. He intended a great truth to be taught by this sign: the new spiritual life does not come “of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13) Abraham was circumcised, at the age of 99. “By faith” he was able to make Sarah pregnant, and at the age of 90 she bore him his son Isaac. Isaac was therefore called “the child of promise.” (Galatians 4:28)
Everybody for a great distance around was talking about the miracle: a woman of 90 years of age had had a baby! Abraham and Sarah understood the lesson: Allah’s “covenant” is a one-sided thing; and since it is his promise, he will fulfil it. As Isaac was the fruit of their faith together in their one-flesh union as husband and wife, so righteousness is the fruit of man’s faith in Allah’s covenant, and not the fruit of his own meritorious works. This is the heart of true religion, for it alone glorifies Allah.
When Allah repeated the promise to Abraham, “It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I have promised,” (Genesis 21:12) he did not mean that Isaac’s literal descendants should automatically have priority over Ishmael’s; they were both sons of Abraham. Allah must be fair. His blessings are not arbitrarily given, but on condition of faith. This silences all charges of injustice. The great mistake of the Jews has been to imagine that they are special merely because they trace their genetic descent through Isaac. All who have true faith in Allah and worship him alone are the true descendants of Abraham, and like Isaac are “children of the promise.” If only the Jews had understood that Abraham is the “father of the faithful,” that is, those “full of faith,” how much war and bloodshed on this sad earth would never have taken place! What Allah values is the heart and the character, not the fleshly pedigree which leads to pride and arrogance, and even cruelty toward other people. The Jews never understood that circumcision was a “sign” or “seal” of righteousness by faith, but they took it to be a merit or work that commended them to Allah — actually a form of idolatry itself! While they derided those who bowed down to images, they unconsciously made an idol of, and worshiped, their own circumcision. What blindness! Most of them completely missed the lesson Allah had taught Abraham, although there have always been a few who were true “children of the promise” by faith.
But Allah had still another lesson that he must impress on Hazrat Abraham. When he was 120 years old, Allah gave him the greatest test of all. His love for his son was tender and deep, and Allah tried his faith with the most difficult command any mortal man has had to obey. He awakened Abraham one night and commanded him to take his beloved son to a certain mountain and offer him there as a sacrifice!
The problem the honoured patriarch had to wrestle with was this: why would Allah make such a command? The heathen gods of the Canaanites demanded such sacrifices; was the one true Allah as bad as they? Where was his love? Could Abraham continue to believe in Allah when everything seemed to indicate that he was as cruel as these heathen gods? Could he have known that Christ’s apostle, John, would later say that Allah is “love”? (1 John 4:8)
Abraham awakened his sleeping son in the darkness and whispered the command to get up and go on a safari with him. Their journey took three days, and Abraham’s heart was heavy. Each night he prayed for some change in Allah’s will, but no command came to change what Abraham had heard at first. Finally on the third day he sighted the mountain on which the sacrifice should be made.
He told the servants: “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5) It was only natural that the boy should wonder where the animal for the sacrifice was!
“Father!”
“Yes, my son?”
“I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
He replied that Allah would provide one, and the two of them walked on together.
“Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it.” Then he told his son what Allah had commanded. Can you imagine the horror that his son felt? He was young and strong, and could easily have overpowered his aged father and run away; but as his father explained it all, the boy decided to share his father’s faith. He willingly submitted — the most amazing devotion of any boy! The father’s faith and devotion were perfectly reflected or equaled by the son’s. The father so loved that he gave his son, and the son so loved that he gave himself!
The world had never seen such a demonstration of love, such whole-hearted devotion to God on the part of both a human father and son. Here was an impressive and deeply significant picture of God’s love for a wayward world.
Father and son embrace in a last good-bye, their hearts bleeding with sorrow. Abraham ties the lad, lays him on the altar, and grasps the knife, raising it in obedience to Allah’s command to slay his beloved son.
Suddenly, God called out from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!”
He answered, “Yes, here I am.”
“Don’t hurt the boy or do anything to him. … Now I know that you fear [have obedient reverence for] God, because you have not kept back your only son from him.” (Genesis 22:6-14)
Abraham looked around and saw a ram caught in a bush by its horns. He went and took it and offered it as a burnt offering in the place of his son. Then he named that sacred place, “Allah Provides.” In the original language there are two names for God, each of which reveals a different aspect of his glorious, divine character. What Allah (El) demands of Abraham, the LORD provides. It is the one true Allah who does both — who demands and then provides.
Why did Allah provide that blood sacrifice? Here is the point of the great story. The honoured Qur’an says of Abraham’s son: “We ransomed him with a tremendous Victim.” (The Qur’an, 37:107) Many commemorate this great “ransom” with the Feast of El-Adha, when they kill a sheep symbolizing Abraham’s offering up of his son. This sacrifice of Abraham has made a great impression on millions of minds around the world. Allah is seeking to teach us a lesson.
The first blood sacrifice was offered by Allah himself when he killed an innocent animal in order to provide a clothing of skins to cover the nakedness of Adam. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21)
Then there was the second instance of the offering of a blood sacrifice, this time by Abel. Adam’s two sons, Cain and Abel, brought different kinds of offerings. Cain brought his own “works,” the fruit he had gathered from his garden, but Allah would not accept his offering because it contained no blood symbolizing the death of an innocent creature. No one can “buy” the favour of Allah. A whole train-load of fruit and vegetables would not obtain forgiveness for even one sin. Cain was making a mistake when he tried to fulfil Allah’s covenant of promise by his own planning and works.
Abel was wise. He did not bring his own works; instead he “brought the first lamb born to one of his sheep, killed it, and gave the best parts of it as an offering.” We read that Allah “was pleased with Abel and his offering.” (Genesis 4:1-5, TEV; The Qur’an, 5:27)
Why?
For the same reason that he provided “a tremendous Victim” to take the place of Abraham’s son. Those in-nocent animals died as a substitute for Abel and Abraham’s son, who were both “ransomed.” A ransom is something paid in order to save someone’s life. The “tremendous Victim” was not something that Abraham provided — God provided it. This was the important lesson that all blood sacrifices were to teach!
There is no way that a ram caught in a thicket could be called “a tremendous Victim” by comparison with the precious son of Abraham. A ram is absolutely nothing in comparison with a human being, especially the son of Abraham. How could Allah compare the blood of an animal with that of his “friend’s” son?
Animals’ blood was, of itself, useless in sacrifice to God. The prophet Micah said wisely:
What shall I bring to the Lord, the God of heaven, when I come to worship him? Shall I bring the best calves to burn as offerings to him? Will the Lord be pleased if I bring him thousands of sheep or endless streams of olive oil? Shall I offer him my first-born child to pay for my sins? (Micah 6:6, 7)
No, Allah said, for “the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.” Animals’ “flesh and their blood reacheth not unto Allah, but the devotion from you reacheth Him.” (Hebrews 10:4) When David (Daud) committed adultery, and then murder to try to cover it up, he prayed: “You do not want sacrifices, or I would offer them; you are not pleased with burnt-offerings. My sacrifice is a humble spirit, O God; you will not reject a humble and repentant heart.” (The Qur’an, 22:37; Psalm 51:16, 17) The Jews missed the point, for he said to them through his prophet Amos:
I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! When you bring me burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. (Amos 5:21, 22)
Then why did Allah institute the system of blood sacrifices? They were only to be a “shadow” of the truly “tremendous Victim” who was to ransom the human race by his blood. He is called the “Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:8) Abel’s blood sacrifice could not truly ransom his soul, but the innocent animal he offered prefigured “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) By offering a blood sacrifice, Abel confessed his faith in that true divine sacrifice, the ultimate reality prefigured by all blood sacrifices.
When Abraham offered the ram that Allah had provided on Mount Moriah, he also confessed his faith in that “tremendous Victim.” Allah was not pleased with the animal’s blood; he was pleased with Abraham’s faith in the Lamb of God, the divinely provided sacrifice for the sins of the world, whose blood has true power to cleanse from the stain of sin.
Why is this so? Simply because sin is a state of “enmity against God, “of alienation from him; and a reconiliation must take place so that the estranged human heart is “atone” with God again. There is no way that this great reconciliation could ever take place, except by the sacrifice of a sinless life to atone for the breaking of Allah’s holy law.
There is a link that binds Abraham on Mount Moriah (where the Al Aksa Mosque now stands) with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. Think of a father willing to sacrifice his beloved son! What tremendous faith Abraham had! Jesus (Issa) said to the Jews, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56) Abraham was a true prophet and could see things that ordinary people could not see. How did he “see” Jesus’ day? How could he actually “see” him 1,900 years before he was born of the virgin Mary?
Allah permitted his “friend”, Abraham, to go through an experience that helped him appreciate Allah’s true character. The best good news that the world has ever heard, is also the heart of the Holy Injil: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) (The words “one and only Son” do not mean that God slept with some woman and sired a son as humans do. Neither Jesus nor any true follower of his has ever suggested such a thought. The original term is monogenes, from monos, “only,” and genos, “kind” and it refers to the “only one of a kind.” The expression describes someone who is as dear and beloved as Abraham’s son was to him.)
When Allah made this great sacrifice, he was not helped with a substitute as Abraham was, for there was no one else who could be provided as an offering for the sins of the world. Allah is not like the terrible Canaanite gods who demanded the sacrifice of children; he would not permit Abraham to actually offer his son; nor was he pleased to see Jesus suffer on the cross. God is not a heathen deity who must be placated or appeased by human sacrifices!
Then why did he permit Jesus to suffer so? We can ask another question, closely related: why did he ask his friend, Abraham, to live through the terrible agony of the three-day journey, going right up to the very point of lifting the knife up to heaven, ready to bring it down to pierce the heart of his beloved son? Why must Abraham be permitted to suffer so? Is that the way to treat your “friend”?
Abraham must not be excused from enduring his great trial, because he must “see” how great is the love of Allah for a lost world plunged into sin and misery. No one can be a “friend” of God unless he understands the heart of God, for Abraham was more than a mere slave crawling on his belly before Allah. You remember how Allah respected Abraham concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.” (Genesis 18:17-19)
Then Allah shared the full plan to destroy those wicked cities in the plain with his “friend”, and he permitted Abraham to plead and reason with him in the same way that two friends would talk and reason together. In order to be the “father of the faithful,” Abraham must be permitted, as far as is possible for a mortal man, to share the heart of God: his feelings and his purposes. Abraham must appreciate Allah’s infinite justice and love. This is why he must climb Mount Moriah and go through an experience that no other father has ever been called to go through. He must go through the experience of “sacrificeing” the one nearest and dearest to him, so that as “father of the faithful” he can teach the world to appreciate how Allah loves us so much that he too sacrificed the one nearest and dearest to himself.
The world is plunging into ruin. Man cannot save himself. Nations, civilizations, cultures, are mad with hatred and corruption. Immorality, pornography, crime, and drug and alcohol abuse, are ruining the quality of human life, while cruel and bloody war is increasingly resorted to as a means of settling quarrels. Hopeful people who have expected great human progress are frankly worried about tomorrow. Around the world, rich and poor alike are becoming increasingly godless and corrupt. Allah knows all about this, and although true believers in him are the special objects of his care, he loves all the people of the world, not just a little elite of special ones.
Abraham “saw” Jesus’ day because he could appreciate the love of God for this world as being like the love of a father for his dear son, and yet a love that led him to make this ultimate sacrifice for the redemption of the world.
In our next chapter we must look deeper into this great truth.