For some of us not yet “born again”, as they say in Christendom, one is often in doubt as to whether we have any moral justification to talk about the things pertaining to divinity. Nevertheless, we would venture into it, believing that one of these days God will “arrest” us and save our lost soul even as we celebrate Eid al-Adha with our Muslim brothers and sisters.
The Islamic religious festival called Eid al-Adha, also known as “Festival of Sacrifice”, commemorates the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim (also called Abraham) to sacrifice his son in accordance with God’s command. Muslims all over the world numbering over 2 billion celebrate this Eid by killing a sheep or other animals, sharing the meat among family members and giving out some meat to those less fortunate in their various communities. This festival stands as a symbol of unshakeable faith and generosity, and heartfelt compassion towards fellow beings. It reminds us of the great sacrifice offered by Abraham who lived over 4,000 years ago in the country now known as Iraq. Simply put, God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son to Him. He obeyed without blinking an eye! At the point of slaughtering the child, God sent a replacement in the form of a sheep, and the child was spared. Who would have obeyed such an instruction today, even at gunpoint?
Basically, the Qur’an and the Bible share the same principles as far as sacrifice is concerned. There are personages common to both Christianity and Islam in the likes of Abraham and his wife, Sarah; Noah and the ark; and the gospel of Jesus Christ and that of Prophet Mohammed, to mention but a few.
In both religions, the philosophy of sacrifice is basically the same. Islam makes it obligatory that, circumstances permitting, every Muslim should perform pilgrimage once during their lifetime and offer the sacrifice of an animal. On an annual basis, the sacrifice of an animal is obligatory on every Muslim who can afford it. But what is important is the spirit behind the sacrifice. The Holy Qur’an teaches that the act of sacrifice of animals is important and that this ritual must be respected and observed with care and attention, but it also says: “Their flesh reaches not Allah, nor does their blood, but it is your righteousness that reaches Him.” (38:22)
The known literature of theories and concepts on the act of sacrifice are quite voluminous. With a language that sounds like psychological jargon, Sigmund Freud argued that “sacrifice is a neurotic ritual to displace guilt for inner-psychic tension produced by repressing the Oedipal Complex”. Emile Durkheim in the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life argued that sacrifice served a dual function: social communion and divine communion. Rene Girard argued that “sacrifice functioned as a temporary catharsis for the mimetic desire individuals have to possess what others have”. E.B. Tylor suggested that “sacrifice could be understood as a gift to the divine, either valued by the divinity on its own merits, valued as an act of homage, or valued based on the hardship of the sacrifice itself”. William Robertson Smith argued that “the sole function of sacrifice is for humans to achieve communion with the divine”. He based his argument on the sacrificial system in the Hebrew Bible where the eating of burnt offerings by priests brought them closer to God. Sacrifice has also been defined as “an act or offering made to a deity either as propitiation or as praise and thanksgiving”.
Aggregating all this grammar in a nutshell, the bottom-line is that to sacrifice is to displease yourself in order to please God.
The Holy Qur’an teaches that the only sacrifices acceptable to Allah are those performed with a willing heart, purely for the sake of Allah, and without any element of vain display or pride, or any selfish desire for material reward. Similarly, the Bible recorded that to obey is a higher virtue than to offer animal sacrifice.
According to religious scholars, it does appear that the Holy Qur’an and the Bible are at variance with one another regarding the relationship between Abraham and Hagar and his subsequent progeny. The Bible recorded that Hagar was Sarah’s servant (Genesis 16:1-2) and because Sarah was childless at the time, she instructed Abraham to sleep with her maidservant (Hagar), thus raising the question as to the legitimacy of the progeny. This question had been answered in the same Bible. The relationship between Abraham and Hagar appeared to be one of husband and wife and not man and concubine as had often been argued. This verse provides the answer: “Abram (Abraham) agreed to what Sarah said. So after Abraham had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarah his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.” One is inclined to lean towards this verse as it is very unlikely that prophets would keep concubines.
Again, a certain semblance of disparity has been observed by religious scholars as to the personality of the child required for the sacrifice. While the Qur’an noted that it was Ishmael, the Bible recorded that it was Isaac. This disparity pales into insignificance when placed against the backdrop of the greater significance of the sacrifice itself and the willingness of Ibrahim or Abraham to surrender to God’s will and to obey His instruction without hesitation. In any case, in some of our cultures, for instance in Ubulu-Uno, in Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State where I come from, it is a taboo to call a child “illegitimate”, irrespective of whatever circumstances under which the child was born. From that perspective, therefore, whether Hagar was Abraham’s wife or concubine, or whether Isaac or Ishmael was offered for sacrifice, all that becomes superfluous and immaterial.
According to an essay by Bilal Atkinson, Editor of the Christianity Section of The Review of Religions, a retired police officer and President of the Hartlepool Chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK, “The sacrifice of the animals should therefore be only an expression of our will, that we are ready to lay down our own lives for the sake of Allah. We should be sincere in our declaration and determination, that everything we possess – our lives, energies, wealth, desires and ambitions – are secondary and ready for sacrifice to the will of Allah. This is what the sacrifice of the animals and the celebration of Eid al-Adha is all about. Muslims (and Christians) declare that they appreciate and recognise the great sacrifice of Abraham and in a similar fashion, they are willing to do the same.”
This writer may not be too grounded in scripture, but it appears there is a certain verse in the Bible where Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” This is the crux of the matter. So, what is paramount is not sacrifice per se, but the fundamental element of empathy in the act of sacrifice. This is sometimes referred to as sacrificial giving as recorded somewhere in the Book of Samuel (2nd Samuel, if I’m not mistaken): “Any offering to God that is not painful, then it is not sacrifice.” Without heartfelt love for fellow human beings, without empathy, one’s sacrifice is considered empty, meaningless and unacceptable to God. As it applies to individuals, so it also applies to citizens and nations. In our society today, experience has shown that many profess love for their neighbours, their communities, and their countries, but deep within them, they are not willing to make any sacrifice to that effect; they are not willing to show empathy.
What then, is empathy? Daniel Goldman, a renowned scholar on emotional intelligence, defined empathy as “the condition of being attentive to emotional clues, and the showing of sensitivity and compassion to the concerns and needs of others”. Empathy implies that all mankind have a common destiny and, small or mighty, black or white, Muslim or Christian, Northerner or Southerner, Easterner or Westerner, rich or poor, all Nigerians, and indeed all humanity belong together.
It may be convenient to simply take freedom for granted as if it fell from the sky. It may be convenient to forget that certain persons subjected themselves to the ultimate sacrifice for this country, but the fact remains that they actually did. Some Nigerians have defied all odds to offer their lives as sacrifice for the survival of the country that we call our own today. If the Azikiwes, the Awolowos, the Enahoros, and the Ahmadu Bellos of this world, and all the other founding fathers of Nigeria had simply pursued their individual ambitions and their personal interests, perhaps this country would still have been under colonial rule till date.
Yet, if you look around you today, you come away with the sad notion that not a few Nigerians have lost virtually all vestiges of kindness, empathy and compassion that the country was well-known for over the years. Nobody gives a damn about anybody anymore. Our milk of human kindness appears to have suddenly dried up. A poor woman in prolonged search for the fruit of the womb would eventually give birth to twins in the hospital and the next thing you hear is that her fellow woman had stolen the two new-born babies – not even one, but the two! Our troops would be ambushed by terrorists and bandits, and all we could say is that soldiers ought to know what they were getting themselves into when they signed up for the job! Instead of despising the poor, beggarly Amajiri child, why not put yourself in his shoes and consider the fact that you might as well have been born into the same circumstance? A woman in labour would be writhing in pain, only for the medical staff to respond by making jest of her and reminding her that they were not in the bedroom when her husband was doing the thing! The moment we are privileged to climb up the ladder, we throw the ladder away to prevent others from climbing. When we see people suffering, we pretend as if we didn’t see them. Yet we give offering in church and offer all kinds of sacrifices to all kinds of gods.
Young school boys use their girlfriends and even their parents for money rituals. Only a few days ago in Enugu State, a young man was found to have killed and buried many innocent villagers in his house for money ritual while all along parading himself as a genuine herbalist. We have seen men and women take photographs and videos of accident victims instead of rushing them to the nearest hospital for medical treatment. We have heard of women and innocent children mowed down like grass by bandits and terrorists on rampage, ransacking peaceful communities, seizing cattle, farmlands that do not belong to them. You would go to church or mosque with your car, and by the time service is over and you want to drive home, you would discover that your car had vanished! Even for exchanging a simple handshake with a fellow man, one’s manhood could simply disappear into thin air! We find hunger and hardship on the faces of our fellow citizens on the street and everywhere, and our only response is to call them “lazy criminals”. These things happen and they are perpetrated by men and women who are purportedly devoted to the worship of God. For such characters, and indeed for all mankind, the Muslim Festival of Sacrifice, the love of God and obedience to His will as exemplified by Abraham’s total submission to divine instruction, provides an opportunity for self-introspection and conscious effort towards making personal sacrifice for redemption, not only for ourselves but also for our fellow human-beings, and for our dear country, Nigeria.
*Anthony-Spinks is of the Delta State Public Procurement Commission. He writes from Asaba.
