The days of Sacrifice

It is the day when, at the center of the world, at the place where the first House built for humanity stands, people answer the meeting command given by God, with cries of "Labbayk" (here I am, my God, I have heeded Your command and Your call, I have come to You), running to a gathering like the Day of Assembly.

It is the day when the principles upon which humanity was created are remembered and renewed, when people remember their true roles and duties in this world and re-establish them.

It is the day when it is engraved again in our consciousness that we all belong to God and will in the end return to Him.

It is the day on which we must remember that, along this path, a series of devils are competing with one another to distort reality and make us forget our task in this world and have other roles written for us, and that we must show the proper stance against them.

It is the day on which we must know that saying "we have believed" does not finish our task in this world, and on which we must engrave in our minds and hearts that we will be tested by countless kinds of carnal temptation and satanic seduction.

It is the day when good people must draw near to one another and join their paths, and for this must keep away from the wicked and separate their ways. For this reason we call it the day of "sacrifice" (kurban). The sacrifice is an act done in order to draw near to God, and to keep away from Satan and false gods. The sacrifice means separating ways with the enemies of God and His Messenger, while drawing near to the Messenger of God and the believers and becoming one community with them. Both the price and the natural consequence of being able to draw near to God is to keep away from everything that keeps one from Him and from those who are hostile to Him, and to separate ways with them.

Therefore the day is the day to recognize all the devils, the great, the middle and the small, and to stone them.

It is the day not to forget that all those devils are working with every kind of trick, on the path of sacrifice and on the path to reaching the truth, distorting facts, whispering insinuations into ears, in order to keep a person from his path and direct him toward other goals.

It is a fact that the geography we live in is a geography where humanity was first "formatted." That is why, despite all the Eurocentric and Western-centric discourses, the primary source of interest for Europe and the West themselves is this geography itself. That is why this geography relives, at all times and most intensely, the whole world of meaning expressed by the symbolism of sacrifice and pilgrimage.

It continues to live every day, in all its freshness, tawhid and servitude to creatures, and all the tensions on this path, Satan, Abraham, Ishmael, Nimrod, Pharaoh, Haman, Qarun (Korah) and Balaam, Hagar, together with the tawaf and the sa'y, and all the realities to which all of these correspond.

Look at the Arab Spring process if you like, look at what has recently happened in Syria if you like, look at the Israeli-Palestinian tension if you like, and, if you like, look at the most recent event, July 15. In each of these events you will find each of these figures performing all their roles.

Today, as it enters the Feast of Sacrifice, the people of Turkey have made clear their stance on whom to draw near to and whom to keep away from. With its 241 martyrs and its veterans numbering close to 2000, it has represented in the finest way the Abraham and the Ishmael of the day against the devils who tried to divert this country from its path.

The people of this country drew near to one another, embraced one another, and separated their ways from the enemies of this country. They never broke their stance against the temptations that the devils placed before them, February 7, Gezi, December 17-25 and October 6-8, and on July 15 they leveled to the ground the hope of all the devils with the truth.

The people of this country have always deserved the holiday, but for the first time in a long while they deserve it so meaningfully. To experience the Feast of Sacrifice to the full is this country's most natural right.

After July 15, as a result of Turkey having shed its impurities, and under the influence of the intervention it undertook, good news comes every day that things are improving in Syria too. In Aleppo, at least, the deaths were given a holiday break with a ceasefire. The days are near for this break to become permanent, and for Aleppo, and then all of Syria, to attain lasting peace. May this Feast of Sacrifice be a beginning for that too, God willing.

May your holiday bring you closer to your loved ones, and may it unite you in the One.

MUSTAFA ŞAHİN'S ONLY SON

The days of Hajj, the days of Sacrifice, are also, on the one hand, days of dying before death. Eleven years ago, on exactly these Hajj days, we witnessed the passing from this world of the dear son of a loved one of ours, Necdet Subaşı, whose death before death we had seen. On a day like this again, on the eve of the Sacrifice, we saw that the only son of another loved one of ours, our brother, friend and kindred spirit Mustafa Şahin, has passed from this world, again a death before death that we witnessed. In these days when millions say "Labbayk," he too said "Labbayk" and walked to his Lord. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. From Him we have come, and to Him we return; with every breath we take we draw closer to Him.

I wish God's mercy and abundant provision from His presence upon Ahmet Salih, the only son of our valued friend and brother Mustafa Şahin, and a beautiful patience (sabr-ı cemil) for him and his family to bear this great grief.