Recordings › "God did NOT ask Abraham to sacrifice his son" | Mufti Abu Layth · 28 Oct 2020 › Segment 1 of 9
Did God really command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son?
udhiyah qurbani qurbaani udhiya udhiyya kurbani muftis shaitan shaytaan iblis iblees shayateen shayatin satan devil koran quraan al-quran sura soorah surat suwar soora chapter ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat wahy wahi waheeDid God command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son? The account in Surah al-Saffat
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This segment0:00 to 3:58 · 3 min 58 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenNo: in Mufti Abu Layth's reading the command did not come from God, and the Quran in Surah al-Saffat only reports that Ibrahim saw a dream and that his son urged him to act on it. The notion of sacrificing a son is traced to the culture of the ancient Near East.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth introduces the widespread story of Ibrahim's attempted sacrifice of his son, whether Ishaq or Ismail, and asks whether Islam holds that the command came from God. He states at the outset that in his view the command did not come from God, that the contrary belief is widespread, and that he will first look at the Quran alone before turning to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. He reads the passage in Surah al-Saffat in which Ibrahim tells his son that he sees in a dream that he is sacrificing him, noting that the Quran does not name the child, and describes Ibrahim as disturbed and confused by what he has seen. He observes that Ibrahim shares the assumption that prophets receive revelation in dreams, asks the son what he thinks, and the son convinces him that the dream is a command to be carried out. He then asks where this notion came from, saying it was not unique to Ibrahim but belonged to the whole region of Canaan and ancient Mesopotamia.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the command to sacrifice his son did not come from God, and that the Quran in Surah al-Saffat reports only that Ibrahim saw a dream which his son urged him to carry out.
“focusing on the question this commandment did not come from god okay now unfortunately it is widespread that it came from god”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
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let's talk about people ibrahim alaihissalam this story that is quite common it's very widespread um the story of the sacrifice or the attempted sacrifice of the son of ibrahim al-islam whether it was isaac whether it was ishmael whoever but the child sacrificing the son now what does the quran say about this do we in islam believe
that this commandment came from god it's my chopper people bring it in bring it in [Laughter] ah your commando so this uh right focusing on the question this commandment did not come from god okay now unfortunately it is widespread that it came from god um and i'll explain why people think that but let's first of all just look at the quran that addresses this issue from a purely quranic islamic perspective
so i understand what we're going to say in the judeo-christian tradition but before one looks at that just looking at the quran okay so you have got people uh one of the popular instances that is brought forward uh shaytan regime is in surah sulfate and people present this often this is the popular um verse where ibrahim al-islam is speaking about ibrahim al-islam where he says that i'm he mentions him becoming devoted to allah going off and
it mentions about his child doesn't mention who the child is now he addresses his child his son he says oh a small son a beloved son uh ini film i see in a dream that i am sacrificing you and he's you can tell that ibrahim al-islam is incredibly disturbed by what he's seen he's troubled he's confused about what what does this mean
um is this because he's of the assumption as well that prophets do receive revelation in their dreams as well so he's got that notion and he's thinking you know what does this mean so he asks the child what do you think um he says that uh what what do you see what do you think about this
now the sun here seems to convince him that this is a commandment and you need to you need to see out act out this instruction um you will find me amongst those who are patient now you see this is not something you have to um we'll come back to the verse you have to understand that where does this notion come from this notion is not something that is
unique like all of a sudden it's just ibrahim one day has this understanding you will see that the near east uh the middle east the whole that region of canaan that region of what would have been ancient mesopotamia all of these places would have had as a widespread practice they would have had human sacrifices so now you will see and this was just a paper as an example i've uh and you've got a another one
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-10-28-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yruc09ajkeq/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, October 28). Did God really command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son? [Video, segment 2020-10-28-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yruc09ajkeq/s/1/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Did God really command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son?" Video, segment 2020-10-28-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded October 28, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yruc09ajkeq/s/1/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-10-28-S01, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Did God really command Ibrahim to sacrifice his son?}}, year = {2020}, month = {10}, date = {2020-10-28}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yruc09ajkeq/s/1/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/yruc09ajkeq/s/1/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-10-28-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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