The tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah is the feast of sacrifice, Eid al Adha, the biggest day for Muslims. Ibn 'Umar has narrated following: the Day of Nahr [day of the sacrifice], the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) stood up among those gathered for the Hajj and said "This is the greatest day." Then he started again: "Oh Allah! Be witness that I have delivered your message ". then fired people, and they realized it was the farewell pilgrimage.
On this blessed day household heads Muslims sacrifice a lamb, the same as Ibrahim (AS) sacrificed in place of his son Ismael (as). So, every Muslim is put in the situation (In the maqam) of Ibrahim and a gesture of substitution (badal ). Understand this gesture is to understand why this is the most important day in Islam, puts us in the situation to return to that day (the gesture) meaning.
And in this way can not stay short. The importance of sacrifice is such that Sidna Muhammad (saws) said: "He who has the means and do not make a sacrifice, is not one of us."
of all, the very idea of \u200b\u200ba "feast of sacrifice" is presented as a paradox: how can a sacrifice, which evokes blood and loss, be considered a party? For those educated in countries where Christianity is still present, the idea of \u200b\u200bsacrifice is associated with the figure of "Christ on the cross" , an image of unbearable suffering, hard to consider as a " party." In the case of Islam, is just the opposite. Sacrifice is a substitution, an act by which we celebrate the rejection of morbid mortification, that opens us to the conscious acceptance of the gifts that Allah has given us.
sacrificial In mythology, the idea of \u200b\u200bself-sacrifice is associated with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe award: we must give up the goods "this world" (the dunia , mundane) to achieve the property of other world (the Ajira , life after life). The relationship between the dunia and Ajira investment is given as: made suffering on earth have as reward the delights of Paradise, but those who live surrendered to the pleasures of this world will be given to prove the torments of Hell.
In Islam we have a diametrically opposite approach. Substitution may Allah makes allows Ibrahim (as) enjoy fatherhood, legitimate love for the Creation of Allah ta'ala. By killing the lamb, we celebrate the life of Ishmael (as), the gifts of life. We are not required the sacrifice of the dearest, but the knowledge that everything is subject to the Command of Allah leads us to the conclusion of a sacrifice. Thus, death is linked to the achievement of a greater good for man in this life and in the other.
The sacrifice celebrate 'eid al-adha is the culmination of a spiritual experience, that the Qur'an is through the story of Ibrahim, alayhi salem. An experience you try to meditate now, with the permission of Allah. What follows are just some personal thoughts, notes on an experience that can hardly cover, but we can barely glimpse with the utmost respect and reverence.
1. Experience of transcendence
There is a fundamental event in the life of Ibrahim, his discovery of Allah as the Creator initially located beyond the visible, an experience that leads him to question all knowledge immediately and face up to idolatry of its people. The Qur'an describes in the following ayats the disclosure, the awakening of a sense of transcendence of Allah in Ibrahim:
And, behold, they spoke to his father Ibrahim Asar:
"Do you take anything to idols for gods?
In fact, I see thee and thy people in manifest error! "Ibrahim
And we view the magnificent dominion over the heavens and the earth-to
out of those with inner certainty.
When it was over it the dark of night,
saw a star, said: "This is my Lord!"
-but when it went down, said: "I love what vanishes."
Then when the moon was out, said
"This is my Lord! -But when it went down, said
"Certainly, if my Lord guide me not, I will certainly
which are lost!"
Then when the sun was out, said
"This is my Lord! This is the greatest! "
-but when it also went down, said:
" O my people! Indeed, I am far from attributing,
like you, divinity to aught beside Allah!
Certainly, I have become entirely
Him Who created the heavens and the earth, apart from all falsehood;
and I am not of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside Allah. "
(Qur'an 6: 75-80)
Initially, the Qur'an reminds us of the experience of the night where man is alone, completely doomed to darkness. Fa
janna maa lam 'alayhi alayiu Ra'a kawkabaa ...
And when darkness fell upon him the night he saw a star ...
(Qur'an 6: 76)
Ibrahim has turned away from idolatry and made on whether the image empty: nothing makes sense any more, everything lost. We're lost in a maze of representations that occur without sense. It is this experience that leads to beyond visible, a dimension of reality which escapes the senses. The first thing that appears before your eyes is a star, a tiny point of light in the black immensity of night. The look of the night comes look at things with a clarity which startles. The glare that occurs is such that confused with his Lord. In a sense, it is logical to think that their Lord is that which survives complete darkness.
However, when Ibrahim said this star is fading:
Lâ 'uhibbu al-'afilîn.
"I do not love what vanishes."
This statement puts love ( hubb ) as your search engine. Love is a force that drives us to go beyond ourselves, a push toward "other." This desire shows that we are incomplete, and therefore are easy prey for all the lures, the fascination with appearances. We are easy prey because we need the other, we are always projecting our shortcomings. In this dark night, in this vacuum of himself that he feels the man awaken the thirst for knowledge, to go into the unknown. Ibrahim is situated to the sky as he stood before a mystery, before the ineffable presence of things. Then the circle moon light dazzled him:
"This is my Lord!"
But the moon also vanishes. Then invokes the guidance of their Lord:
The 'il-lam yah Rabbi dinni the' nanna akuu qawmi min al-adz-dzaaliim.
"Certainly, if my Lord guide me not, I will no doubt those who are lost!"
After love, this verse gives us a second key. Ibrahim understands that human perception is misleading, that his outward vision is limited. He realizes that it must receive a guide of the same truth you are looking for: it is she who must be disclosed. Until this happens, it will wander from one thing to another, lost in the world of representations. So once again falls into error when viewing the magnificence of the sun: Rabbi Hadzaa
hadzaa 'akbar.
"This is my Lord, this is the greatest." Third
error, third key: Ibrahim looks for bigger, something that does not fade. While limited by its perception displayed outside, never find what is truly great: al-Kabir, one of the Names of Allah. Just when you fade the sun itself (the largest in the world of representations) realizes that his Lord is beyond the apparent. With that, it opens a new dimension to Ibrahim (the malakût ), which had remained hidden behind the veils of "kingdom of this world" (the mulk). Ibrahim
aims to "biggest", breaks the boundaries of perception and discovers a vast limitless. She finds something whose greatness is not measured can not be limited based on the misleading ways. If we can measure, is still not the greatest, but something that we cover with our measurement capability. We need reach that which is beyond measurement, the Infinite: only then will break the limits of our perception and open ourselves to the occult, a world that embraces and surpasses us. This gap involves the breaking of the self as a measure of things. Given the immensity of what we yet created anything, but the same is not nothing at all to the Infinite. This break
overwhelmed, in a sense is a loss, but also a relief. Doubt fades, there is certainty. A loss of all our fantasies of domination and a loss of references to the ego. However, it is also a relief: Overcoming all the obsessions that we were trapped, of idols we had wrought. We were on hold, in the open, in the very hands of the Creator of heaven and earth.
2. The "religion of the ancestors"
The Qur'an has introduced us to Ibrahim as a restless man, in search of a true solid, irrefutable certainty. The first moment of Ibrahim Pasa for questioning his father's religion. After that is done about it "the darkness of night," reference to the absence of belief, the state of anxiety in which they live who dares to question the foundation. The question itself is a sign of ignorance, but own desire to know is the road. Recognizing that we know we are already addressing those beyond our capabilities, we are asking the revelation occurs.
interior
This process leads directly to face his people. When you view as the sun sets, the awareness of their Lord immediately impels him to proclaim the incomparability of Allah:
qawmi innii barii 'um-mimmaa tushrikuun.
'Inni jahtu wa j-lil-waj-hiya
ladzi fatara wa al-'ardza \u200b\u200bsamawaati
hanii fan wa maa' ana min al-mushrikiin.
"My people, I am far from what you associate!
Certainly, I extend my face, firmly and truly,
One who made heaven and earth;
and I am not of the idolaters. "
(Qur'an 6: 79-80)
situated across from the idols they worship their elders Ibrahim realize that these are nothing but hollow statues, signs of a religion that has long lost its value, to be reduced to a habit. Everything pushes confrontation to report a meaningless cult, which tends to usurp the direct contact between the Creator and creatures. The verses in which he addresses to his people are the most numerous of the Quran dedicated to the history of Ibrahim:
And certainly much earlier [Musa]
Ibrahim gave his consciousness of rectitude;
and we were aware of him when he told his father and his people:
"What are these images which are so intensely devout?" replied
"We found our fathers worshiping them."
said: "Verily, ye and your fathers
manifest error!"
(Qur'an 21: 51-54)
The outbreak of Ibrahim realizes that the disclosure has occurred it involves the removal of the beliefs of his surroundings, the "religion ancestors ", recurring theme as a leitmotiv in the history of all prophets, peace and blessings. Can not be encoded or mundane elements represent what comes before and is above all the mundane. Otherwise, all we do is putting limits on the unlimited, which is no longer unlimited.
not associate anything with Allah: that is the negative way of explaining the significance. What else could Ibrahim said his encounter with the unattainable? To say that unlimited-as unattainable, incomparable and infinite-it is eligible to Allah in a negative way, by mentioning what is not. Let what we say to Him, He is always more. If we say that is beauty, He is beyond the Earth's beauty, if we say it is mercy, He is the omni-mercy, a mercy which encompasses everything all the time. Whatever it is, he always overflowing, as it stands precisely their efficacy, remain a source of relentless pursuit.
Beyond the specific reference to statuettes, one must begin with the unveiling to understand the message of Ibrahim. The experience of transcendence is the face-off between man and his Creator, which turns into rejection of idolatry in the world of creatures. Ibrahim has turned its face toward "other side." Certainly, the entrance to Malakút us away from Mulk, showing the absurdity of associating the Creator what belongs to the world of creatures, how could a creature created itself?
said: "But we found our fathers doing the same thing
!"
(Qur'an 26: 73)
Any representation of Allah is a usurpation. Confusion between the psychic world of man and the generative principle of life. If we limit to Allah in terms of spiritual processes, we're doing it inoperative, unable to transcend these processes. By placing Allah and before all things, we are invoking an anterior force to all conflicts, previous deep full depth, a light beyond the darkness.
opposition between religion as a cultural element and the relationship between the man with the Whole. In the first case, religion is a limitation and a sign of identity, the second is to overcome the ego and cultural barriers to Reality itself. But people cling to the religion of their ancestors, dogmas and doctrines accepted without question. Why has this situation? What is what sustains a cult so empty? Ibrahim himself offers an answer:
"You have given to worship idols instead of Allah only
maintain a bond of love,
in this life, with you ...".
(Qur'an 29: 24)
What holds up the worship of idols is an attempt to maintain tribal bonds of love, about relationships based on convenience rather than consciousness of their Lord. This reminds us in many ways the kind of "religious " which is broadcast today, many Muslim majority countries: a state religion based on custom and the mechanical repetition of ritual. No longer knows what time of the transmission chain is left behind the content. In any case, we verified that the transmission has been broken, that education has lost its ability to awaken in the faithful the deep meaning of revelation.
Separating Allah from any form of representation is separate from any sign of identity and return it to the unconditioned. Is necessarily break with the religion of their ancestors and establish an inner link with Allah, face to face with our Sustainer, as Ibrahim did emerge from the darkest night. For Allah is not found in human culture, although significance is the engine of the most sublime creations of man. Those who claim to see Allah incarnate in a culture or religion are in clear error.
Ibrahim himself explains the futility of this "tribal religion"
"... but then, on the Day of Resurrection,
disown each other and I will curse each other
-for your common goal is the fire,
and ye shall have none to render assistance. "
(Qur'an 29: 25)
What underlies the "spiritual anarchism" of Ibrahim is the fact that nothing can replace the human relationship with their Lord. Judgement is the moment in which everything superfluous fades, it is the decline of the stars in the sky, destroying everything now seems solid. That Day will not be judged only by our actions, nothing will serve the claim that we believed to serve Allah with our worship meaningless.
3. The dream of the sacrifice
recap the "four stages" of the initiation experience Ibrahim. First love as any genuine search engine, second rather the recognition of the limitations on living creatures, third orientation greatest, after reaching the intuition of the presence of Allah, leaving no choice but to bow down, falling face down on signal submission to our Creator. Now we can understand what it means Ibrahim when he exclaims "I love what you do not fade." mean, neither more nor hands, that their love does not support limits.
With this, we stand at the moment in which Ibrahim received a dream from Allah: to sacrifice his son. A dream is not something alien, but a reflection of our deepest desires. A Through it, Allah revealed to Ibrahim the conflict that has occurred inside: the contradiction between his desire to "not love anything but Allah" and his love for his son Ismael, belonging to the world of creatures. The episode of sacrifice leads to a climax this conflict, the possible relationship between the multiple and the One, the unbridgeable distance between Allah and all perish.
Allah says in surat al-Kauzar ( abundance):
We have given you plenty.
Make Salat to your Lord, and sacrifice.
who hates you is sterile.
(Qur'an, Surat 108)
We must be willing to sacrifice everything that prevents our access to wealth. Sacrificing little things, the idols that limit us, that keep us locked in our watertight compartment. Power, eternity, money, success, sex, ideology, everyone knows of his own. Allah please, get entirely at your disposal in the service of the force matrix of life, that moves the heavens and the earth covers us and annihilate, which responds to our commitment to a caressing glance. This is not only painful for the ego, the smallest of ourselves. On the contrary, this little pain (ruptured the boundaries of the ego as a measure of things) enables us to a greater pleasure, the encounter in Allah with our neighbors.
The path of Islam does not require us to give up the goods of this world, but the detachment on these goods. Only those who are willing to forsake all get a real good. Only those who have overcome the slavery of ideas, things, tastes, and loved, and has gone completely to Allah, you are ready to enjoy things, ideas, flavors and beings. What has left behind is sickening anguish of loss, desire for control that characterized the selfish love, false love of cowards.
Only detachment liberates us, brings us the gifts of the open. Free is not to abandon the world, but move about without conditioning superfluous, without fear of loss and death. Only then the man stands ready to meet that for which it was created, to become master of his existence. The hater (who is incapable of loving Allah) is sterile. He who loves Allah, greets his son Ishmael (as) as a reward.
intervention of Allah, and his offer of a substitute, is a mercy to the creatures, one of the crucial signs of the Qur'an Generoso, and what Muslims celebrate Eid al adha . Through the sacrifice of the lamb overcame the fracture and found that our love for the Creation of Allah is the privileged sign of our love for Allah.
So Allah tells us that has led to Ibrahim (as) in this life and in the other:
And who, but someone weak-minded,
would abandon the faith of Ibrahim, who in Indeed,
we privileged in this life and the next will,
certainly among the righteous?
(Qur'an, Surat 2, ayat 130)
Ismael is not only the son of Ibrahim, before anything else is a creature of Allah, a being subject to His command. Is fully Ibrahim's son alone at the time in which he acknowledged that is not theirs. So, Ibrahim is released as a chain of love, Ismael is freed from the tyranny of his father, of religion as a cultural heritage, separated from the spiritual experience that supports it. Ismael Ibrahim acknowledges that belongs entirely to Allah, your Lord gives it to Him to guide you to the right path.
Early in his spiritual quest, Ibrahim has left the idolatrous worship of their ancestors. Knows that all spiritual transmission may be lost, objectified in a stone that brings and nothing means anything. Ibrahim can not expect your child to accept his religion as his father Asar pretended that he accepted his. What gives Ismael Ibrahim is his dream, that of death itself, its limit in the shade. The acceptance by Ismael despaego is his initiation into his own dark night. From it, Ishmael awakens to the presence of Allah as a mercy unlimited.
predisposition of Ishmael to be sacrificed is the sign of sharing his father's detachment. Because of its delivery, Ishmael became a prophet (as), and Allah does not differentiate between his envoys. Upon assuming his fate and accept death, Ismael put up to Ibrahim. Both share the same din, the same intensity of delivery. Ibrahim and Ismail are then brothers in Allah, one learns from the other, and together they are ready to build the Kaaba. Epilogue
Everything comes from Allah, and unto Him is the return. Easy to say, but to assume this fact is not so easy. We must accept the dream as a guide, be waiting for the mandate to lead us as a lamb to slaughter. Not worth a life back to that dream, back to the signs by which Allah revealed to us. It must be assumed that domestic mandate that makes us caliphs of Creation, creatures free from the mundane, able to live among the creatures as beings of another world on this. Thus, we have broken barriers, the Ajira is dunia. The
'eid al-adha celebrate the summit of mystical pilgrimage Sidna Ibrahim, peace be upon him, the encounter between human love and divine love. It is the secret of the black stone, pole orientation, meeting place for humans subjected.
loves his son Ibrahim, and that love is a sacred bond, the same bond between Allah to His creatures. Thus, the love of Allah can be done. When we are able to love selflessly, turn to the things and creatures with the full awareness that they are being created by Allah, here and now. When we can see things at the time of His creation, then the right and wrong evaporates, vanishes all trial and are willing to accept and obey, to enjoy and fight in the way of Allah.
Allah does not want to give up our love for perishable things, even our self-esteem, but we love them as creatures subject, as Muslims, with our limitations and defects, in the certainty that there is no other Reality Allah. How can we fail to love everything around us if there is nothing more than Allah? Certainly not what love fades. Wa
lil-Lahi hamdu Rabi 'alamin, Hi bi wa
nasta'in
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Universe, and He will entrust
Opening of Meeting 
In a time of white balloons inflate meeting in memory of the 64 fatalities gender-based violence 
