The Sacrifice

The feast of the sacrifice in the Muslim religion follows the lunar calendar, a calendar very like ours, with the difference that no adjustment is made to have the feast in the same season — that is, they do not do as we do, adding a month every two or three years in a cycle of 19 years to celebrate the feast in the same period. Without this adjustment, the feast can come sometimes a month earlier, sometimes a month later.

Studying the subject of sacrifice, we find in this word two senses: 'sacr-' and '-fice'. The first is to sacralize, to give the sense of holy, of sacred. The second has the sense of doing, making. In world history there were sacrifices of animals and of humans. We know this custom was practised in different civilizations such as the Sumerians, the Hittites, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the ancient Greeks, in Jerusalem, and among the natives of America… Another sense of the word 'sacrifice' is to lose a small portion in order to gain a larger one. In Turkish 'sacrifice' is 'kurban', a word that comes from the Hebrew 'korban'. Another sense is to give part of one's goods to help the unfortunate who suffers from want.

In world history the sacrifice of an animal, or sometimes of a human, was practised to calm the anger of the gods, to have good produce, to thank and gratify the gods because we had a good harvest, to cleanse sins, to show the respect we have for these gods. Apart from Buddhism, this custom was practised in the other civilizations. In Buddhism it is not looked on kindly to exploit and make other creatures suffer. From this we understand that for them making an animal sacrifice makes no sense.

In the Muslim account of the sacrifice of Abraham our father, although it is said to have been the act of sacrificing Ishmael, the Koran says he wanted to sacrifice his 'SON' without mentioning a name. This act is celebrated today at the end of the pilgrimage to the holy places such as the Kaaba, which was already a holy place before Islam, where idols stood, and among them 'the Black Stone'. Today inside the Kaaba there is only 'the Black Stone', thought to be a meteorite; now we know that this theory is less accepted after the studies made on it.