Chief of the Prophets — Page 21
Chapter Two 21 prohibition, he mentioned this to Ishmael as with the intention of literally fulfilling the dream. The obedient son readily bowed his head to carry out the Divine commandment. When Abraham as was about to slaughter his beloved son, he heard voice of an angel, “O Abraham! Verily, you have fulfilled your dream. Now leave Ishmael and in his stead sacrifice a ram in the way of God. Apparently, this is its symbolic allusion. However, the actual purport of this dream shall be fulfilled in another manner. ” 1 So in this way the tradition of sacrifice was established in Islam at the time of Ḥajj , when thousands of animals are sacrificed every year. The Erection of the Ka‘bah and the Prayers of Abraham as in the Company of Ishmael as When Abraham as went to Makkah for the fourth time, he noticed that the Ka‘bah’s structure had almost disappeared with the passage of time. With guidance from Allah, he started rebuilding it at its original site. Sir William Muir writes: Tradition represents the Ka‘ba as being, from time immemorial, the scene of pilgrimage from all quarters of Arabia:—from the Yemen and Ḥaramaut, from the shores of the Persian Gulf, the deserts of Syria, and the distant environs of Al-Ḥira and Mesopotamia, men yearly flocked to Mecca. So extensive a homage must have had its beginning in an extremely remote age. 2 For the construction of this House, the son carried the stones and the father erected the building. When the walls reached a certain height, Abraham as placed a special stone 3 in one corner of the 1 The Qur’ān, Chapter Aṣ-Ṣaffat and Tafsīr Ibni Jarīr. 2 The Life of Moḥammad: From the Original Sources by Sir William Muir and T. H. Weir, p. ciii, Published at Edinburgh by J. Grant, 1912. 3 It is the Black Stone that is kissed with the lips or with a gesture of hands while doing the circuit, but it should be remembered that it is not sacred in itself, rather only a memento. Once ‘Umar, Khalīfa II ra was performing the circuit of Ka‘bah, pointing towards the Black Stone, he said, “You are only a stone which has no