Over the past three days the Muslims have mercilessly slaughtered the sheep, goats, camels and cattle all over the world in general and the Muslim World in particular to commemorate the act of Hazrat Ibrahim sacrificing the ram some four millennia ago. In fact the practice of sacrificing the eldest child to please their god was a common ritual among the people of North Africa, West Asia, Near East Asia and many other places in the pre-Abrahim era. Being a great Hebrew patriarch and social reformer originally from Ur located 300 kilometres away from Bagdad in southeast Iraq first raised his voice tactfully against the idol worship as his father Azar was himself a sculptor of idols. Later he hit a plan to sacrifice a ram to save his son from sacrificing upon the altar. As per the book of Genesis it was his son Hazrat Isaac born to Hazrat Sarah who was saved from the ritual of child sacrifice. However, the Arabs who became Muslims believed that it was Hazrat Ismail born to Arab maid Hazrat Hajra. Given the fact that the eldest child was as a practice sacrificed, therefore it would have been Hazrat Ibrahim. However, Torah is much older than the Quran written in the seventh century, so rising above the sectarian differences between Jews and Muslims on the subject applying the reason is more important than subjectivity defending the Jewish or Muslim claim.

A decade ago, a paper based on archaeological findings in Northern Africa, specifically Carthage, Tunisia, written by Rabib Blake rocked the academic world. It concluded that the ancient Carthiginians in all likelihood practiced child sacrifice, and, even more shockingly, that the ritual sacrifice of children may have been fairly common throughout this part of the world—including ancient Israel.The burial site in Carthage belongs to a specific type that archaeologists designate with the Hebrew word tophet, a location described in the Bible where people would sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to various gods. It’s also a word for “hell.”
Archaeologists discovered that the Tophet of Carthage contained over 20,000 urns stuffed with the cremated ashes and bone fragments of young children, suggesting that the practice took place over several centuries. At its largest, this ritual burial ground covered over 64,000 square feet and spanned nine different levels. It looks increasingly credible that infants were sacrificed as burnt offerings to ancient Near-Eastern deities, including Yahweh, the god of the ancient Israelites. There are some texts, the Rabbis said, that cry out, Darsheini, “Explain me!” For the scholars who have examined the findings at the Tophet of Carthage and other similar sites, the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, is a proof-text corroborating the practice of child sacrifice. It is far from the only one. In the Hebrew Bible alone, the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Kings, and Jeremiah all refer to child sacrifice in one way or another, often in the form of laws and proclamations condemning and forbidding the practice—a fact that itself strengthens the conclusion that child sacrifice really did happen in ancient Israel.
Therefore, the Muslims fail to understand the spirit behind the actual animal sacrifice performed by Hazrat Ibrahim some four millennia ago. In fact the actual purpose of Hazrat Ibrahim was to end the ritual of child sacrifices among the people of his time, so he substituted the ram for his son. Thereafter, the people of Israel began to follow the tradition of Hazrat Ibrahim to perform the animal sacrifice. However, as mentioned above the people in many parts of Africa, Europe and Asia continued the human sacrifices even after Hazrat Ibrahim abandoned the child sacrifice.
It is high time for the Muslims to understand that the spirit behind the animal sacrifice of Hazrat Ibrahim was to save the children from the cruel death at the hands of their ignorant and superstitious parents who believed that by sacrificing the eldest child to please Yahweh god of ancient Israelites, there will be prosperous family life with many children. The present age of enlightenment demands that we should have mercy on the lives of innocent animals. To be enlightened and civilised human beings of the twenty first century let us take an oath with ourselves to say no to the animal sacrifice and avoid eating the animal meat.

Email:----------- ghathar@yahoo.co.in