Killing in the name of…?
The concept of sacrifice has been one of the subjects of humanity since ancient times. It represents giving away your possessions what is being cherished, for God(s). This concept has undergone several moral evolutions over time with the influence of religions. The story of Abraham can be given as one of the most striking examples of that moral shift. According to the traditional narratives in the Islamic cultures it ends the era of human sacrifice and starts the era of “more appropriate” animal sacrifice. However, this narrative may not be based 100% from the Qur’an. Althoug, from the Qur’anic perspective it is true that the experience of Abraham represents the end of human sacrifice which was a common practice of that time, it is still questionable if the aim of this experience was to replace a human with an animal. Also this story starts us to question; what if the thing that you claim ownership does not belongs to you in the first place? Let’s go into the details;
In the story, Abraham sees a dream that he sacrificed his son, and he interprets his dream as an order from the God and decides to sacrifice his son. However, God prevents this action by a revelation and turns Abraham away from this cruel tradition. The Qur’an describes the moment of this action and gives a very important detail as follows;
“Surely, this was an exacting test. We redeemed him regarding great massacre.” 37:106–107
Although the last part of this verse says, “We saved him regarding great massacre.”; it is commonly translated as “We gave him a great animal sacrifice”. Or sometimes it is even translated as “We (instead of his son) sent down (with angels from the sky) to him a big animal sacrifice (ram)”. Therefore, this verse is used for justifying the traditional offer fest where thousands of animals are sacrificed each year. But can it be true that it is just a misinterpretation? Does God really sugested the animal sacrifice instead while He is prohibiting the human sacrifice?
I’ll try to show you that the verse tells nothing about sacrificing animals but tells something about turning Abraham, who was in the act of human sacrificing, away from great massacre, and saving his son from it. The verse 37:107 in fact consist of only 3 words with given roots and some dictionary meanings;
فدي (fdy): redeem/ransom/set free
ذبح (pbH): massacre/carnage/slay
عظم (EZm): great/big
In that sense, it does not mention the ram or any animal descending from the sky to be slaugtered instead of Abraham’s son. That mistranslations are influenced by the misinterpretated version of Genesis 22:13 where Abraham sees a ram on the mountains of the Moriah land and decides to offer it to God instead of his son. However, in that chapter the angel of God does not tells Abraham to sacrifice the ram. The revelation only says “Do not lay a hand on the boy!” “Do not do anything to him!”. It can be seen by a careful eye that this is the personal decision of Abraham and it should be differentiated from the orders of God.
In the Qur’an, various other verses which are claimed to be about the animal offering. However, none of these verses contain any orders regarding killing animals for God as widely applied among Muslims today. Since there is no clear command in the Qur’an, many scholars even think that “the animal sacrifice” is not obligatory worshiping way in Islam, and therefore, it is in a different cathegory form the basic worships such as fasting, praying etc.
Before looking at the other verses clamed to be related to animal sacrifice we should pay attention that there are various words Qur’an that are (mis)translated as “Sacrifice”. Those words are mostly have multiple meanings which also allow different translations other than animal sacrifice and those meanings also fit to the context of the Qur’an. One example is as follows;
“We have given you plenty. Therefore, you shall show solidarity (Salat) for your Lord, and endure/resist difficulties (wainhar).” 108:1–2
In this verses, the final part “وانحر (wainhar)” is being generally translated as “sacrifice and animal” instead of “endure/resist difficulties.” However, the root of this word literally means “the upper part of the chest” and it can also represent “facing the challenges” in the language. Thus, for some scholars is not possible to translate this word simply as sacrificing an animal.
If we look at the history, during the time of the Mohammad, the polytheists were already sacrificing animals for God and other lower deities during the pilgrimage. After the Muslims retuned to Meka, they continued this tradition by dedicating their offers to God alone. The rest of the verses which mentions from animal sacrifice are mostly refers to this incident, but not in a positive way.
In 22:37 God obviously opposes these animal offerings by saying “Neither their meat nor their blood reaches God, but what reaches Him is the responsible behaviors from you…”.
So, God wants us to live our lives responsibly and behave respponsibly towards the others. Apart from that, the verse says God does asks from us the blood or the meet of the animals. However, the ancient tradition of sacrificing still continues in Islam as if it is a religious duty/obligation; likewise in many other religions.
Sacrificing the most valuable possessions for God is believed to bring humans closer to God in many cultures. Back in the days some people saw the other people, for example slaves, childeren or woman as their possesion and maybe therefore they sacrificed them. With today’s consensus of individual rights, and our moral evolution luckily sacrificing a human sounds weird. But we dont have to stop there. I believe, our moral understanding as humankind is still developing/We are still evolving. As a result of this moral evolution, hopefully we will start seeing animals as individual living beings instead of our properties and acknowledge their rights. Also, how can we declare ownership on the animals as Muslims while the Qur’an says;
“To God belongs everything in the heavens and the earth.” (4:126)
Can we sacrifice our cognitive dissonances instead, changing our life with common senses? Actually the verse 6:162 summarizes what we can only devote/sacrifice for the Creator as follows;
“Say: “Indeed, my solidarity (Salat), my worship, my life, and my death are all to God, Lord of the worlds.”” 6:162
I believe we as Muslims should start sacrificing the right thing, turn the offer fests in to a compassion fests for all.
Sources;
https://www.haberyuzdeyuz.com/guncel/kur-an-da-oyle-bir-ayet-yok-h17032.html
