I mean there is no contradiction, I can’t see any contradiction in it, because these incidents belong to different times, they are two different times. When Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. left Hazrat Hajra and the child in the vicinity of Hana Kaaba, he left them and went away. So there is no question of his asking his son or taking advice of his son about the dream. And we don’t find it mentioned anywhere that at that incident, at that time it happened. So there is no contradiction. Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. kept visiting the place from time to time. He came and met Hazrat Hajra and Hazrat Ismail and looked after them, and even after the death of Hazrat Hajra, he kept repeating the visit.
So that is what we find in the tradition of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa A.S. That incident took place when he had grown up, because as I mentioned this in my sermon in Fiji on this occasion, when Hazrat Ibrahim A.S. was told that, or he was shown in the vision or dream that he saw slaughtering his own son, in the first instance he interpreted that dream and decided to leave Hazrat Hajra and Hazrat Ismail in a deserted place near Hana Kaaba, in the desert close to Hana Kaaba. That was fulfilment of the dream by way of interpretation.
But it seems that all through his conscience was pricking at him, because he was a man of a very high order. He just wouldn’t be satisfied, always in doubt, perhaps I have escaped the ultimate sacrifice, I have run away from it. But again he was a very wise prophet, so he knew the principle that he could not sacrifice somebody else for the sake of his dream. And an infant or a small child was not in a position to decide. So all the time he must have been worrying, yet his principle withheld him from slaughtering his own child, because a child cannot decide for himself.
So he must be waiting for the time when the child came to majority. And after he had grown up and could take a decision for himself, then he put this question to him, maza tara. And he had been bringing him up, all through, in a manner that the answer would be nothing but I accept. And that is what happened. So it’s the most beautiful incident in the history of sacrifice, full of deep teachings and philosophy. But unfortunately people have distorted it to just a plaything and nothing more.
