Sarawak,Malaysia;Saturday.
The Muslim ummah worldwide should learn from the rites of Sacrifice which is in conjunction of the Hajj season and strive to help one another.
The Prime Minister Of Malaysia, Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said that the rite of Sacrifice or Qurban is not only done through the slaughtering of animals such as sheep, cows or camels to be shared with the poor but encompasses other aspects of human life.
According to Datuk Abdullah, there are many ways or versions of sacrifice such as donating money, books , clothes, food and other stuffs to those who are less fortunate than us.
‘The rites of Sacrifice and its benefits are not only done during the Hajj Season but at other times. Sacrifice is to let go something that is valuable to a Muslim and give it to the poor and needy," he told the crowd at his house in Penang.
According to the Koran, God wanted to test the Prophet Abraham’s faith and sent an angel who came to him[Abraham] in his sleep. The angel told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, to prove that he is a truly faithful man.
Being a loving father, of course, the Prophet faced a raging internal conflict. There are those around him who questioned his sanity. After all, how could a father sacrifice his own blood. However, conflicts, controversies and doubts are never far from God’s messenger.
The stuff that real man are made of will only be revealed during those moments when they are tested to the limit.
Ishmael pleaded with his father to obey God’s orders. Thus, the Devil sensing Abraham’s intense conflict tried to seduced him. This seductions happened on the way to the sacrificial altar. Each time he took a stone and drove the Devil away. This practice was incorporated into the Hajj known as the stoning ritual.
At las, when Ishmael was stretched on the altar, God acknowledged Abraham’s sincerity and exchanged his son for a sheep. From then on the rite of sacrifice always included a sheep.
Datuk Abdulllah told the crowd that Malaysian as a whole are a lucky lot. Ther are many companies, organisations and individuals who donated animals and other valuables to be given and shared with the less fortunate.
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This element of sincerity and sacrifice was clearly absent this time around when the twelfth General Election took place Members of he ruling coalition turned away from their own candidates. There are reports of sabotages by those who are not chosen to be the candidates
Sabotages can be found to be wearing many clothes. There are those who refused to come out and vote. There are cases of vanishing campaign funds. To make matters worse, there are those who followed the Opposition’s road show.
Amidst all these chaos, where is Abraham’s taeching?