Why must we quote the Quran in our pious pleadings to make a life-giving sacrifice of goats, sheep, cows or bullocks?
ISLAMABAD: Amina Jilani’s article “Why not a life-giving sacrifice?” (November 13) seems to have been based on an erroneous understanding of the Holy Quran's Surah 22 ‘Al-Hajj’, when she quotes a part of Verse 37 in support of an otherwise humane appeal not to make the required sacrifice of animals but donate a live goat or a cow, as a long-term gift to the families who have lost their livelihoods in floods.
Surah 22, Al-Hajj (verses 36 and 37 read together) stress the need for offering sacrifices of “Budn” which are made as among the symbols of Allah, wherein there is much good. “So mention the Name of Allah over them when they are drawn up in lines (for sacrifice). Then, when they are down on their sides, eat thereof, and feed the poor who does not ask, and the beggar who asks. Thus have we made them subject to you that you may be grateful”, so states Verse 36. Finally, it is Verse 37 which reads, “It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah, but it is piety from you that reaches Him. Thus have we made them subject to you that you may magnify Allah for His Guidance to you. And give glad tiding to the Muhsinnun.”
Why must we quote the Holy Quran in our pious pleadings to make a life-giving sacrifice of goats, sheep, cows or bullocks which may provide an ongoing income for flood-affected families? After all, nobody stops the NGOs and other philanthropists to make such life-giving gifts of living animals at their own cost.
Jameel Bhutto
Former federal secretary religious affairs
Published in The Express Tribune, November 15th, 2010.
