Sacrifice to Appease the Merciful Allah!
By Syed Kamran Mirza
NYC, USA
[email protected]
The Eid-ul-Azha popularly
known as Qurbani Eid in South
Asia is just over now. Like
the change of the seasons this Qurbani comes into the Islamic world
every year and the Islamic folks go crazy over it year after year after
year. And this religious occasion had lead the utopia of merciless
slaughter of tens of millions of innocent animals (cows, camels, sheep
and goats) by devoted Muslims throughout the Muslim world.
All these merciless slaughters were performed to please the
merciful Allah!
The origin of this madness named sacrifice (killing animals) for
Allah was derived from the myth related to pre-biblical Prophet Abraham
(Ibrahim in Islam). This
belief system of sacrifice is called burnt offerings in Bible.
This was the system of sacrifice discovered for Jews, and Bible
commanded this decree of God by hundreds of scriptures throughout the
Old Testament. Animal
sacrifice was prescribed for Jews and Christians by very strict Biblical
injunction. Yet,
Jews and Christians stopped this mad practice longtime ago
once they realized that this is nothing more than an uncivilized and
inhumane practice. But
sadly though, the Muslims are busy killing animals to satisfy the angry
Allah just the way ancient uncivilized peoples used to sacrifice human
life (Naro baali) to appease
their deity. Later in the
course of human civilization, ancient people used to sacrifice animals
instead of human. Hindus
and various other tribal religions do occasionally practice this animal
sacrifice even today.
I was inspired to write this essay about Kurbani by a marvelous essay
(about Kurbani episodes) which I read last weak in this forum. I will
come back to that later in this essay.
Just when I started this essay, I got another sad story of real
Kurbani (real sacrifice) of Abrahamic style performed by a devout
soldier of Allah in Bangladesh. The daily star (Feb. 27) news was as
follows:
‘THE
Eid mood got suddenly overcast with gloom and horror on February 23rd
evening as the television news caster served up a heart beat stopper for
millions in the country. And courtesy satellite television millions
outside Bangladesh learnt about it, too. What a shame! Golam Mostafa
alias Tula Mian put his seven-month old child Solaiman to sword in the
delusion of performing a religious duty 'directed by a voice heard in
dream.' As his progeny lay slaughtered, a non-chalant Mostafa with his
barbaric zealotry muttered the total nonsense about being dream-driven
to act.’
This above mentioned mind-boggling
incident is not an isolated case. No, I do not consider it to be a case
of hallucination, or a psychotic case either. This is simply a case of
religious fanaticism. Madrassah educated Golam Mostafa alias Tula Mia
was not psychotic or schizophrenic. He may have hallucinated but that
was due to his religious fervor. He believed strongly and literally what
he learned from the Holy Quran about the incident of myth-related
Kurbani story of Prophet Ibrahim. He thought about it, day and night,
and as a result he dreamt that impossible episode. Result was the
unbelievable cruel demise of his 7 month old son.
Big question is who is responsible?
Where was the most omnipotent, most Merciful Allah at the time of
slaughtering that poor 7 month old innocent child? Who should be blamed
for this horrendous episode? I
strongly believe it was the Islamic teachings solely responsible for his
mindset. It was the fanatic zealotry behind his cruelty and madness. It
is the same kind of religious zealotry makes a believer kill another
non-believing human being! A fanatic zealot inspired by religion Islam
is so strong and forceful selfish, that he has no regard for a life of a
human, or animal. Only thing he cares for is his deity Allah. And to
appease his blood thirsty Allah, this zealot can sacrifice even his own
child, as we have seen in the case of Tula Mia.
Heavenly pleasures (houries, wine, milk and honey) make these
Islamic zealots inhuman creatures.
It is the same kind of religious
teachings which can turn a peaceful and quite white American boy into a
zealot Taliban (John Walker Lindh) having bushy beard and turban.
Readers may still remember my article in NFB: “How
one gets to be a Taliban”--in which I did prove with
incontrovertible logic how a single human being can act differently with
different beliefs and education. Culpability of Golam Mostafa rest on
the teachings and belief of
Islam. Had he not learnt about myth-story of the Abraham’s Kurbani—Golam
Mostafa may not commit such inhuman act of sacrifice in the name of
religion.
Now back to my original Eid story. The heartbreaking essay titled,
“The Eid Story” (NFB
February 19) by Mr. Lutfur Rahman has opened my past memory of similar
cruel and horror stricken episodes during Qurbani not once but twice.
The same horrific scenarios (unborn calves inside the torn opened
gaping body cavity of the sacrificed cows) were seen by me in two such
occasions of animal sacrifice. Yet,
there was not a slightest remorse to those hungry meat eater pious
Muslims and everything was just fine by the fatwa
of our merciful mullah Huzoor.
Again, heartfelt thanks to Mr. Lutfur Rahman for rewarding NFB
readers his well-written but tears rendering essay about his true
experience of an episode of Islamic sacrifice.
Mr. Rahman left some painful heart touching (Hridoy
Bidarok) questions at the end of his marvelously described essay,
which should open the eyes and minds of the conscientious readers.
His questions were as follows:
Mr. Rahman wrote:
“Going
to bed belly full in a scarlet cow that night, Allah’s purpose did not
appear too apparent to me. For a long time before falling asleep I could
here strange voices asking:
How
could an omnipresent, omniscient, ever merciful Allah sanction such
torture and destruction of another one of His own magnificent creation
and its unborn fetus with, what appeared to be, such callous disregard?
To
which higher court of authority does a mother cow and her unborn calf
seek justice and deliverance? Are mother cows and their fetuses exempt
from coverage of mercy ?
And
whose sin, whose piety and whose penance?”
Who will answer those intelligent questions asked by Mr. Rahman?
I am quite positive that none of the Islamists will ever come
forward to answer these questions!
Immediately after the horrendous incident of September 11, Rev.
Billy Graham was in the famous CNN Larry King show discussing the days
events. Rev. Graham told
the audience that after that horrific Sep 11, many people asked him: “where
was the all powerful and merciful
God when these Arab terrorists flew their aircraft and crashed them into
the WTC and Pentagon building? How
God let such horrible things to happen?
Why can’t the almighty God not interfere with such a terrible
episode?” Mr. Graham
said (nodding his head down) “I could not answer those questions; I do
not have any answer why God did not interfere.”
The fact of the matter is—God never could interfere to any dreadful
acts of human beings nor could he ever interfere with any such natural
devastation like cyclone, hurricane, earthquake, flood, etc.
He never did interfere when millions of human beings were gassed
to death by Hitler or when thousands of people were drowned with the
sinking Titanic. Similarly,
God never did intervene when hundreds of man, women, and children were
perished when an Egyptian Aircraft went down in the icy water of
Atlantic Ocean! The truth is that God never could interfere—when
millions of human beings were perished by deadly diseases before the
discovery of medicine by humans. He
never could interfere when one fourth of the world populations were
perished by bubonic plague!!! These
are all documented cases. Bubonic
plague used to scare the ancient folks all over the world.
Similarly, small pox (Guti Bosonto) and cholera (Ola Utha) used
to dread our grandfather’s generation (as the Allah’s Gazab) in the
early twentieth century. It
was the discovery of antibiotics and other medicines that conquered
these pestilences. The God, who may have been too powerful at one time, had
nothing to do with the eradication of these deadly diseases. And these are cold facts of the progress of human
civilization.
If one analyzes all the facts and figures of the growth of human
civilization in a cool head, one
will find out quite easily that our God, Allah, or Baghaban was never
omnipotent, omniscient, all mighty or
Merciful!!! May
be He never did exist in reality. Only He exists in the human
imagination! May be, we the
humans actually created Him and gave him all those mouthful adjectives
only to make Him a big thing worthy of worshipping!
May be, Allah, God, or Baghaban was never omniscient or all
powerful. May be, Allah, God or Baghaban is completely a deaf and dumb
entity! He never hears anything, knows anything or does anything by
Himself! He never did talk
with any Prophet, nor had He revealed Himself to anybody!
And that’s why Mr. Rahman’s questions will remain unanswered
forever. May be, we the
humans shall have to find the answer of those intelligent questions
asked by Mr. Rahman in his essay of Eid
Story. We the humans should discover the way to love each other. We
the humans should stop these mockery of worshipping God by sacrifice at
the expense of others life. Only
then, could there be any lasting peace on earth.
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