It was very much a tradition and the expected thing to
do in the society that circulated within the differing
cultures of those days. Sacrificing your first born or
your most loved. Human sacrifice.
Ibrahim and Ishmael or if you prefer the other variant
of the story, Abraham and Isaac, enter into this
sacrificial scenario only to discover that the One God
does not require human sacrifice, so a goat is sacrificed
instead.
Of course, there could just as easily be another
interpretation of the events which is no less holy,
namely, Ibrahim(Abraham) understood that it was
not in the power of a human being to
destroy God's gift of life to another whatever the
religious or philosophical arguments!
What a problem! To honour tradition or to honour
the sanctity of life.
Well if these stories mean anything at all,they
most surely mean that to honour a tradition in
the knowledge that we destroy another God
given life...... is about as far from holiness and
the One God as it is possible to get.
Upholding tradition has it's limitations in respect
of respect for God and respect for God given life!
Better to sacrifice the cantankerous goat of
inhuman tradition.
Eid al-Adha
.
.
