The Importance And Significance Of Sacrifice 3mq5a

The Importance and Significance of Sacrifice: Literal Meaning of Sacrifice: An animal sacrifice in Arabic is called ḏabiḥa ( ) or Qurbani ( ) . The term may have roots from the Jewish term Korban; in some places such as in India/Pakistan, qurbani is always used for Islamic animal sacrifice. In the Islamic context, an animal sacrifice referred to as ḏabiḥa ( ) meaning "sacrifice as a ritual" is offered only in Eid ul-Adha. The sacrificial animal may be a lamb, a sheep, a goat, a camel, or a cow. The animal must be healthy and conscious. ..."Therefore to the Lord turn in Prayer and Sacrifice. " (Surat Al-Kawthar) Quran, 108.2 Qurbani is an Islamic prescription for the affluent to share their good fortune with the needy in the community. On the occasion of Eid ul Adha, affluent Muslims all over the world perform the Sunnah of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) by sacrificing a cow or sheep. The meat is then divided into three equal parts. One part is retained by the person who performs the Qurbani. The second is given to his relatives. The third part is distributed to the poor. Muslims say that the sacrifice has nothing to do with blood and gore (Qur'an 22:37: "It is not their meat nor their blood, that reaches God. It is your piety that reaches Him..."). Rather, it is done to help the poor and in remembrance of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael at God's command. The Eid is a real occasion for joy and rejoicing. It is a legitimate joy, yet it is not a personal joy or physical pleasure. In order to realize its design, it must be communal and manifest spiritual values . It is a season in which those who have must give generously to those who have not. It is not the wild joy which makes man slave to his habits and carnal desires. It is a joy which makes man thankful and appreciative of God's bounties and benefits to him. It is a joy for being enabled to fulfill one's duty to God and to his fellowman. It is therefore, spiritual and social rejoicing. If anyone of the two is lacking, the celebration will not be complete. The Eid of Sacrifice or the Great Eid is of this kind. It is the Eid of the Pilgrims who were fortunate enough to fulfill their religious duty by visiting the House of Abraham, the place which the Prophet of Islam (pbuh) loved and blessed and promised the same blessings to those who with sincere hearts and clear consciences pay visit to it.

The religion of Islam is a system of conduct; universal and eternal. Its mission is not purely dedicated to worship and self-purification, nor is it confined only to regulating man's relation with God. But it is practical religion designed to regulate the relation between man and God and between man and his fellowman as well as to point the way of happiness and prosperity to mankind in this world and the life hereafter. It regulates the spiritual side of man's life as well as his physical life. It is a moral code as well as social law, political as well as financial. It is the law of the individual and of the society. It contains laws that scholars term devotions and transactions. These two, although different entities and distinct from one another, do not contradict one another. Indeed, they are complementary to one another; each helps to promote the end of the other. Devotions, although they appear to be of personal merit, are designed to help man and when heartily and attentively performed do actually help him to be a good social citizen. Likewise, when actuated by good motives, transactions help to purify and elevate the soul of man. Thus, spirit and matter, this world and the hereafter, the individual and the society - all have become so dependent upon one another, so related to one another, that none of them can reach its ultimate perfection or realize its end without the others. The perfection of each is the primary condition of the perfection of all. This trend of thought in which the welfare of the soul is conceived as dependent upon the welfare of the body and vice versa, the rights and duties of the individual are inseparable from those of the society, and man's duty to God has become connected with his duties to the society - this trend of thought is never absent in any single aspect or branch of Islamic legislation. It is to be found everywhere as it is to be also found in the periodical religious occasions and celebrations. Eid-ul-Adha is, according to Islamic teaching, a time for Muslims to learn the value of self-denial by making a sacrifice of something living to God. It is stringently denied by most Muslim theologians that the sacrifice has any further significance and it is especially denied that religious sacrifice has any atoning or propitiatory value. Hazrat Abraham's great act of submission is thus regarded solely as an example of genuine surrender to the will of God and is to be followed as such.