In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
FAMILY OF ABRAHAM – THE IDEAL FOR ALL
TIME
[Shamim A Siddiqi,
INTRODUCTION:
We are passing through the age of hero worship practically in every
field of life. Our youth are crazy for their heroes in games, sports, film
actors and actresses without giving any consideration to their habits and
manners, ideals and character, love for humanity and the quantum of sacrifice
for the uplift of mankind. Most of them are very often found leading a drunken
life, involved in drugs and narcotics, deeply buried in lust for money, name or
fame and often found caught with sex scandals. Very rarely people are found
choosing their heroes from the pages of history from the life of individuals
who have created everlasting impression on the rocks of time through their
humanitarian services, developing the faculties of human mind behavior and the thinking
process of the time towards shaping the destiny of man and the objective for
which they lived on this earth.
Such characters are, no doubt, rare but are many in the annals of
history who lived like humans, struggled extremely hard throughout their life
for the objective they loved , faced all kinds of trials, tribulations and torture
for its sake, suffered innumerable losses of property, family and nationality,
encountered stiffest opposition form the monarchs, the ruling coterie of time but carried out their mission of life upper
most in their mind which they themselves undertook by their free choice and
travelled with hardship far and wide for its sake while maintaining the
integrity of character, honesty of purpose and devotion to the mission as priority # 1 of their life.
The most precious and the most unforgettable exemplary character out of
the entire human race was and is that of Abraham, the common Patriarch of the Jews,
the Christians and the Muslims, the most perfect Monotheist that came ever on
earth. You take any part or segment of his life he will be the most perfect
model for mankind for all times to come. Equally, his devoted wife Hagar and
the most obedient and beloved son Ismail [May Allah be pleased with each of
them] were the superb model on their own merit. Let us elaborate these ideals
from the life pattern that they passed on this earth.
Every year Muslim celebrate and commemorate the sacrifices of these
ideals at he time of Hajj that falls on
the 9th of Dhul Hajjah when the millions of Muslims assemble in
Makkah from every nook and corner of the world for five days and remember with
love, affection and devotion what they did in that city and its surroundings around
3600 years BC when there was no habitation, no water, no sign of civilization
in that sacred city. Every segment of their life in the city is memorable and
Muslims cherish it as the integral part of their Iman in Abrahamic faith. The
entire commemoration of Hajj which is incumbent on every Muslim and Muslimah
once in life time to perform if he or she can afford rotates around the
sacrifices of either of the father Abraham, or the mother Hagar or the son
Ismail. History presents some details of what each of them did at the cost of
their personal sufferings and devotion to the cause of their Lord.
1. ABRAHAM, THE FATHER – THE LEADER OF MANKIND:
Sir Leonard Woollley in his research
book ”Abraham”, published, London 1935,
writes that he was born around 2100 BC in the privileged class of the
society in the city of Ur in Iraq. His father was holding the highest post of
the state. His people were idolaters, materialistic and secular in the attitude
of life. They were mostly traders and their economy was interest based. People
were fond of luxuries in life style. It looked like the modern
When Abraham got maturity he
discarded all their gods one after the other declaring that they cannot be God.
He turned his face to Lord God in this process. He smashed all the statues and
put the axe on the shoulder of the big statue so that people may turn to it for
this calamity on their idols. On personal inquiry when they discovered that it
was done intentionally by Abraham to draw their attention to the fact that
these idols were good for nothing - could
do no good no harm, they prepared an inferno and threw him in it. But by
the orders of Lord God it turned into a garden of peace for him. He came out of
it unharmed. His infuriated father turned him out of house. Abraham had to
leave the home, his family, the country and his people for the sake of his Lord
and left every thing what a man could afford to sacrifice for the sake of his
Deen and the ideology that he holds. By
virtue of these vast sacrifices and total submission to Lord, He recognized him
as the leader of mankind, the Patriarch of the Jews, the Christians and the
Muslims.
He migrated to
THE ROLE MODEL OF HAGAR, THE MOTHER:
Abraham then reached the wilderness of Makkah and left his wife Hager and his baby son Ismail with some dates and water and started walking back. His wife Hagar asked him many a times: on whom you are living us in this wilderness and solitude? He kept silence. She then told herself: Is it on the directive of God? Abraham kept quite and just nodded his head in confirmation. She then responded: “You go, if it is as per the will of my Lord, I am sure, He will not destroy us.” This reply shows the depth of her faith in God and the amount of sacrifice that it contains under the circumstances in which she and her small baby were going to be left to bear all alone.
The dates and the water finished
within a couple of days. In her front there were hills now they are called Safa
and Merwah. In search of water, she desperately left her little son on the
ground and went to top of Safa and then from there to Merwah, keeping her eyes
on her little son lying in between two hills in the valley. He made seven trips
like that from one hill to other. On the
seventh turn she saw that water is gushing from the place where her son Ismail
was rubbing his little feet on the ground. She rushed to it and wanted to
cover the water with stones from spreading was calling “ZUM ZUM”. This was the miracle of God at the feet of
Ismail. The fountain is still running and providing the most delicious
healthy water to millions of Hajies and the local people every year. Allah made it as an integral part of Hajj
rituals to run in between Safa and Merwah as Hagar did and drink the water of “Zum
Zam” to complete their Hajj. What a
trustworthy and Allah conscious wife Abraham had!
THE ROLE MODEL OF SON - ISMAIL:
Abraham returned to Makkah after some time and re-built Ka’bah, the House of Allah on direction from Allah with the help of his young son Ismail. Both prayed to Allah to make it the place of reverence for the humanity to visit the House of God and give Baraka in Rizq [provision] to its people. That Khair (goodness) is still going on for the people of Makkah.
Later on, Abraham saw in a dream
that he is sacrificing his son Ismail. He told his son about the dream and the son
Ismail responded. “Father, you do what
Allah has directed you to do and you will find me extremely obedient to
forebear it”. Abraham took his son Ismail outside with every intention to
slaughter his son as he saw in dream. Allah accepted his intention towards
sacrificing his son, sent a ram from heaven in his place to sacrifice and
pronounced to Abraham that you have proved worthy of your dream. Allah accepted
his sacrifice of ram in place of his son and the entire Muslim Ummah is
commemorating this sacrifice every year at the time of Hajj for three days and
distributes i/3 of the meat to the poor and needy, a continuous tradition of
Sadaqah. What an obedient son Abraham
had!
CONCLUSION: For his life-long sacrifice in the way of Allah,
devoting his entire life in calling the humanity to the fold of its Creator and
Sustainer, setting model of his life to surrender to the call of Allah as and
when it came to him, his family of three established the model to be cherished
by all men and women, sons and daughters, rich and poor, free or in distress to
make each of them as everlasting heroes of our life. If human society adopts
him and his family members as its model, only then it can reap the peace of
mind in self, develop harmonious family and enjoy a balanced society. Their immaculate
character will always keep us inspiring in the wilderness of modern secular and
self-centered life which is full of arrogance and pretentious life pattern.
Shamim Siddiqi
October 12, 09