There is a verse in the Holy Quran which tells, to which Brother Ismail, Ismail isn’t it, has referred to which says that Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. prayed to Allah, arayni kaifa tuhi il-mawtah O my Lord, show me how you raise the living from the dead and Allah replied in his heart, don’t you believe? He said of course I believe, but I ask it for the satisfaction, for the content of my heart liyatma inna qalbi Now then Allah says that we told him to collect four birds and to surhuna ilayk is the most important word here which is debated surhuna means break them into pieces, cut them into pieces and surhuna also means attach them to you, familiarize them to you, make them love you be so close to you as birds are tamed and then turned into friends The Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya says, this is the Tafseer of Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. that surhuna, ilayk positively tells us that here Allah does not mean breaking them into pieces or into minced meat, because ilayk would be absolutely out of place here ilayk means towards you, so if Allah had meant that cut them to pieces what does it mean, cut them to pieces? Towards you So there is no sense at all in towards you unless the word surhuna ilayk is translated as familiarize them to you, win them and tame them Now that is the meaning which the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya ascribes to this verse Now the point is, why birds?
The fact is that birds, what he had in mind, first let me tell you was not in fact the survival after death, after the physical death he was not interested in that question and he could not understand it anyway, because that demonstration couldn’t be given here on this earth what he meant was that around him there were dead peoples, nations which were dead spiritually and had completely no contact with Allah and no concept of any spiritual life so he was wondering how could that be achieved so Allah told in answer that you can win people through love and revive them through love by no other means and those among them who have the capability and the potential to fly, that is to turn to me they are called birds and those who are earthly people, their symbol is beast so Allah does not say take any birds, any life, any living things in your hands this is a beautiful verse which explains that if you take for example any beast in your hands it will not behave as I want to show you because the beastly people and the earthly people are not going to be given a new life anyway only those who have the quality of soaring high towards Allah towards spiritual heavens they will be given new life, that is what Allah told him and then he understood.
So it was the employment of love which was according to the message from Allah to Abraham which was going to work the miracle and that is the message even for today if you want to catch the birds as the Messiah Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has seen in a dream that he has come to England and he saw in the dream that he was catching white birds from that he inferred, interpreted this dream to be a message, a glad tiding by Allah that he would have converts to Islam from among the white people so how to catch the birds? the answer lies in that verse which you have just quoted first you begin to love them bring them closer to you and then when you give the message they will come to you, otherwise not
