The sacrifice in the context of Gaza, and humanity's trial in the mirror of the conception of God

The ritual of sacrifice, whose first practice began with the children of the Prophet Adam, is, in the forms it has taken throughout history, a very important phenomenon for tracing the ebbs and flows of the human mind. It is not only a religious practice but also a mirror of the transformations that humanity's conception of God has undergone throughout history. Because every form that sacrifice has taken in fact shows how human beings understand God and what kind of relationship they establish with Him.

Yet a significant portion of the theories developed about sacrifice in the modern world read the matter entirely in reverse. According to this understanding, shaped by the influence of positivist sociology of religion, humanity first stood at a level in primitive times where it tried to appease the gods by offering them blood; then it passed from polytheistic beliefs to monotheistic religions; and finally, because it had now reached the "stage of mature humanity," a modern secular consciousness emerged that no longer needs rituals such as sacrifice.

In this narrative, sacrifice is seen as a primitive stage that humanity must overcome.

As if people at the beginning slaughtered sacrifices to feed the gods with blood, to appease their wrath, or to bargain with them. At the center of such an understanding lies a conception of a "god" who is angered, who wants to see blood, who "needs" it.

The oddity lies precisely here: How can a being who has needs be God? Does the idea of God not in itself require need-lessness in the absolute sense?

Human anthropomorphic conceptions of God have throughout history also corrupted the understanding of sacrifice. The human mind is often inclined to think of God through its own needs, angers, desires, and power relations. That is why idolatry, paganism, or polytheism have emerged in human history not so much as a starting stage but as forms of the human mind's constant deviation from tawhid. Because the human mind tends toward facile solutions; it tends to reduce the unseen to the seen, the transcendent to the immanent, the absolute to the human.

Even today, in societies that have accepted pure tawhid belief, it is possible to see how the routes opened by the sanctification of certain persons, great figures, "saints," in the name of drawing near to God turn into new idolizations.

For this reason many deviations that have formed around sacrifice are in fact the result of a deviation in the conception of God.

The human being begins to think of the acts of worship that God commands as if God had need of them. Yet all acts of worship are not for God but for the human being. They are to deliver the human being from servitude to servants and bring him to the freedom of being a servant only to God. Indeed, by the explicit statement of the Qur'an, what reaches God is neither the meat nor the blood of the sacrifice; what reaches God is only taqwa. That is, the human being's intention, submission, and orientation.

The second major deviation on the subject of sacrifice is to read the matter only within the frame of "patriarchal paternal authority." Some modern interpretations try to present the story of the Prophet Abraham as an example of a father establishing absolute right of disposal over his son's life.

Yet in the tradition of tawhid there has never been such a thing as a practice of human sacrifice.

The Prophet Abraham's turning to sacrifice his son is an entirely unique divine test peculiar to himself. And the moment that test was successfully passed, the ransom for his son was paid, again by God Himself, with a ram. Because the Owner of Abraham, of Ishmael, and of the ram is God.

Moreover, in the story Ishmael appears not as a passive object but as a conscious subject, an agent. The moment he grasps that this is a command from God, he submits not to his father but directly to God. He shows no hesitation as he lays his neck beneath the knife.

Here there is not a one-sided patriarchal domination but a two-sided submission. Ali Shariati, perhaps under the influence of Kierkegaard, focuses the test on Abraham, because in the narrative on which Kierkegaard relies, the son to be sacrificed has no knowledge that he is to be sacrificed, and the real test is the father's test. Yet in the Islamic narrative the test is the test of both Abraham and Ishmael.

In fact, it is also possible to see in Jewish sources how the narrative of sacrifice was distorted over time. The turning of the sacrifice into Isaac did not merely produce a narrative of lineage-centered superiority; it also changed the spirit of the story. In some Jewish narratives it is told that when Isaac understood he would be sacrificed, he begged his father in fear. Yet it is unthinkable for a person possessing knowledge of God at the level of a prophet to show such an attitude.

This difference is also extremely striking for understanding the human typology that has emerged between Gaza and Zionist Israel today.

In the theological subconscious of Zionist Israel there is an understanding that absolutizes life, renders death meaningless, and makes clinging to the world the ultimate goal. They see themselves as God's chosen beloved servants; but they have no haste whatsoever in meeting God. Death for them is not a meeting but an absolute loss. That is why, if possible, they would like to live a thousand years.

Yet in Gaza, in the face of death, we see an entirely different state of mind. An Ishmaelite stance that sees dying in the way of God not as annihilation but as martyrdom and meeting... Moreover, here, for the Gazan, there is no ontological distinction between Isaac and Ishmael. The matter is not ethnic or lineage-centered; the matter is one of submission to God.

For this reason the resistance we see in Gaza today is not only a political or military resistance. It is also a deep theological and existential consciousness.

In fact, the distortion of sacrifice and the distortion of the conception of God have always advanced together throughout history.

At this point Maimonides's assessments of sacrifice are also noteworthy. Maimonides, one of the most important names of Jewish thought, says that the tradition of the burnt offering in particular does not in fact reflect the essential spirit of Jewish theology. According to him, such practices are historical forms that could not be removed entirely because of people's habits.

Although this approach may seem in some respects to draw sacrifice toward a more symbolic and spiritual place, ultimately it falls behind Islam in that it sees sacrifice as a historical product of the human mind. Because in Islam sacrifice is not a ritual invented by human beings; it is a divine education that brings the human being closer to God, enables him to transcend his ego, and frees him from servitude to servants.

Looking at Gaza today, we see once again the true meaning of sacrifice and its direct reflections in life.

Sacrifice is not merely the slaughter of an animal. Sacrifice is the human being's severing of dependence on everything other than God.

Abraham's knife was not directed only at Ishmael; it was directed at the human being's attachment to everything other than God.

And perhaps this is exactly what the world cannot understand in Gaza today: While some people absolutize life, others live with a consciousness of submission that can sacrifice even life for the sake of God; giving life to sacrifice, manifesting its truth.