 Let's talk about the narratives of the sacrifice. Sacrifice from Sakra and Fakere, from the Latin, meaning to do something sacred. That's logatan and its etymology and its technical meaning to give up something for God, right? So, when we look at the biblical narrative, Genesis 22, and I won't talk for that long because we're on a time crunch and we need to eat and I'm smelling burgers. Anyway, Genesis 22, this passage is actually called Ha'aqeida, which means the binding, the binding of Isaac. There's a ha'apax lagamanon, that's one of those fancy words we like to throw out there. This is a word that only occurs once in the entire scripture, Vayakod, and he bound him, right? The word ha'aqeida in Hebrew is related to the word haqeida in Arabic. Haqeida, sometimes translated as creed or beliefs that are binding upon you, right? So, we are told here that God said to Abraham, take your son, your only son whom you love, and Isaac, and offer him. Take your son, sorry, take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him on Mount Moriah. Now interestingly, we know that Abraham had more than one son during this time. His firstborn son, according to the Torah, was Isma'il. But if you listen to, or if you're familiar with anti-Muslim rhetoric or polemics, they'll say, yeah, but you know, Abraham is commanding Ishmael, or sorry, Abraham to sacrifice the son whom he loves, right? So implying that he doesn't love his other son, he doesn't love Ishmael, right? Which is very interesting because if you go to the commentaries, rabbinical commentaries, on this verse, 22 of Genesis of Bereishith, for example, Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yksaki, who is the father of Jewish exegesis, a European rabbi who died, I think, the 12th century of the common era, in his exegesis of the Akida passage, he quotes from the Talmud, Sanhedrin 89b, which gives the fuller dialogue because Orthodox Jews believe in an oral law, not just a written law, right? On Sinai, Moses was given a written law, which is the Pentateuch, the Chumash, the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but also was given an oral law, which is sort of a commentary on the written law, right? So we can't ignore the oral law, the fuller conversation between Abraham and God is given in the oral law. So this is what it says, according to Rashi. It says, God told Abraham, take your son. And then Abraham said, Shenei b'neem yeishili, that's some Hebrew for you. Here's a joke for you. How does Maimonides make his coffee? He brews it. All right. Sorry. These are the jokes. So Abraham's response was, I have two sons, right? Take your son. Shenei b'neem yeishili, two sons I have. And then God tells him, et yachideka, your only son. And then Abraham says, Zeh yachid le immo, vezeh yachid le immo. This is the only son of his mother. Meaning Isma'il, Ishmael, Yishma'il, God hears. And this is the only son of his mother. Meaning Yitzhak. It's interesting, the names of prophets, they're very, they're secrets in the names of prophets. Yishma'il yasma'ahullah means God will hear. And Isaac means laughter, laughter. What does the name mean laughter? Because according to the Quranic narrative, when the angels came to Sarah and Abraham, they said, they're going to have a son. It says, faldahikkat, she laughed. And said, I'm going to have a son. I lead wa'ana ajuzun wa hadha ba'ali sheikha. Inna hadha la shei'un aajeeb. I'm going to have a son. I'm an old woman. Look at my husband. He's 100 years old, literally. He's 100 years old. So they named their son laughter. Anyway, so Abraham says, this is the only son of his mother. This is the only son of his mother. So then God says to Abraham, asher ahavta, the one whom you love. Right? The one whom you love. Now, what is the response of Abraham according to the oral law in the Talmud, quoted by Rabbi Shlomo Yixaqi, the founder of Jewish exegesis in Sanhedrin 89b. What does Abraham respond with? He says, shana'ihim anni ohave. Both of them. I love. Both of them. I love. It's really important when we study scripture, the text of a scripture, we have to study tradition. We have to study exegesis. Because I can quote anything and make anyone look completely violent. I can take something from the summa of Aquinas and make them look like a homicidal maniac. I can quote something from the Talmud and make the rabbis look crazy. I can quote something from the Quran, which is done to me all the time, and say, oh, your religion advocates violence. You get the point. The first three rules, as I say, of hermeneutics or scriptural interpretation is? Context. Good. Context with second rule. Context. Third rule? Context. Context. Like the first three rules of real estate? Location. Location, location, location. Good. All right. So he says, shana'ihim anni ohave. Both of them. Abraham, I love. And then God said to him, eth yitzchak, Isaac. I mean, Isaac. Right? So we glean from the fuller Biblical narrative that Abraham loves both of his sons. Now, what's interesting is that when we look at the Quranic narrative of the Aqidah, the identity of the son is not given in the Quran. This is in Surah 37, Safat. We're not given the identity. He's not named. Wabasharnaahu bi Ghulamin Halim. That's all he's called. A forbearing son. We don't know his name. The narrative goes on to say, Abraham, he's be upon him, Ibrahim, alaihi salam. He had a dream. So he goes to his son, whoever this son is, and he says, He says, Which is very interesting. So he says, my son, oh, my dear son, I have had a dream. And we know from prophetology, Islamic prophetology, that when a prophet has a dream, it is a true dream, that I've had a dream that I'm sacrificing you. What do you think about that? Very interesting. So in the Biblical narrative, Abraham does not tell his son, Isaac, what's happening until they're actually going up the hill of Moriah. And then Isaac turns to his father and says, Where is the sheep for the offering? God himself will provide a sheep. But here in the Quranic narrative, he tells his son, What do you think about that? And the response of his son is, Oh, my dear father, do what you've been commanded. You will find me if God wills from the patient. You will find me if God wills from the patient. So then, The Quran says, And then when both of them had submitted their wills to God, had both entered into a state of total submission. And Abraham was going to slaughter his son, And then the angel cried out, The angel stopped him and said, Oh Abraham, you have fulfilled your vision. You have fulfilled your dream. The command of God was not to kill your son. The command of God was for you to be willing to sacrifice the thing that is most dear to you in this entire world. So this is true sacrifice. Being able to love God because God deserves to be loved and knowing that all of these things that he gives to us are a gift from God and ultimately the affair is all about God. Now, there is an opinion that this son is Isaac in the Islamic tradition. There are big apostolic authorities that is to say big Sahaba, companions of the Prophet, who said this is Isaac. And a lot of Muslims don't know that. Like Imam Ali Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, Imam Ibn Jareer Al-Tabari says in his seminal exegesis, Jami Ul Bayan, that this son is Isaac. Why? Now, the dominant opinion is that it's Ishmael. Later exegetes would say that it's Ishmael. Because after you have the narrative of the Aqaida in the Qur'an, then you have and we gave glad tidings of Isaac. Now, is this first sort of summarizing the Aqaida narrative? Or is this moving on a new idea? There is a difference of opinion. So there is a genuine difference of opinion amongst Muslim exegetes. Who is the son? The dominant opinion is that it's Ishmael. Because for the Muslim it's not really a big issue. The Ibra, the lesson is the most important. Early church fathers, it was a big deal for them because the binding of Isaac is a Christological typology like for origin of Alexandria, Justin Martyr. It's kind of foreshadowing what God is going to do to his own quote-unquote son in the New Testament. Sacrifice his son. So it's very important for him to be Isaac, an ancestor of Christ. And for many Jewish authorities it's also important that it be Isaac because he is the progenitor of the Bani Israel, the Bani Israel, the children of Israel. But for the Muslim perspective it shouldn't be a point of contention. It doesn't matter from our perspective who the son was. Okay. That's all I wanted to say, really. But if we have time for questions, I don't know how we're doing on time. If you have... You can ask me anything you want. My day is well. Thank you very much. Very nice. Woke up a little bit. Woke up today, read a little bit. It's always good to read every day. Should improve every day. Learn something. Learn a new vocab word. Progenitor. Progenitor. What else? Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. Actually, focusing on universals like their sacrifice may be more important than focusing on the particular. Yeah, the question is why is focusing on a universal more important than the particular? And whether you said focusing on sacrifice. Focusing on the particular... Sorry, the general I think is one of the main discourses, if you will, the thematic elements of the Quran itself. The Quran says So, Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian, but he was an archetypal monotheist, someone who submitted his will to God. So what the Quran is attempting to do is to establish Islam as being this religion that is not somehow bound by tribal affiliations or any of these types of identifications. This is universal religion that Islam is not a religion that, at least how Muslims understand it, Islam is not an amalgamation of Judaism, Christianity and, you know, pre-Islamic Arab paganism. But rather that Islam is a sort of recapturing of the actual tradition of Abraham. And that's what the Hajj, the pilgrimage is all about. The rights of the Hajj, the pilgrimage go back to Abraham. They don't start with the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They have origins in Abraham. The father, right? As the Quran says, this is a religion of your father, your spiritual father Abraham. Right? And we find this idea also in the New Testament in the Gospel of John that, you know, if you were Abraham's children, you would do as Abraham did in the Gospel of Luke chapter 19 or 18. Jesus says about Zacchaeus, a very short man who was hiding in a tree. This man too is a son of Abraham. Right? So this idea of recapturing that original message of the patriarch that's the most important. That's why you don't have a lot of name dropping in the Quran. You don't have a lot of long genealogies in the Quran. The story of Joseph, there's only a few people named. There's only one woman named in the entire Quran. Because the point is not to name drop. The point is to teach true lessons that are transcendental. We get caught up on names, then we become tribal, we become racist. Right? We start to exclude others, become exclusionary. Right? We start to identify the other based on a name or tribal distinction.