It is said: Submit to the command of Allah, and submit, and surrender all mean the same. And it has been recited with all of them when one yields to Him, and humbles oneself. Its root is from your saying: This is submitted to so-and-so if it is freed for him. Its meaning is: It is safe from being contested in it. And their saying: Submit to the command of Allah, and surrender to Him are both derived from it. The true meaning of them is: He has dedicated himself to Allah and made it safe for Him and pure. Likewise, the meaning of surrender: He has purified himself for Allah. And from Qatadah regarding 'Aslama': This one submitted his son and this one himself. And 'And We laid him down upon his forehead' means he was struck on his side, so one of his foreheads fell to the ground in humility, in accordance with the undertaking of the matter with patience and endurance, to please the Most Merciful and disgrace the devil. It has been narrated that this was at the rock in Mina, and from Al-Hasan: in the place overlooking the Mosque of Mina. And from Al-Dhahak: at the place of sacrifice where sacrifices are made today. If you say: Where is the answer to 'when'? I say: It is omitted, its meaning being: So when they submitted and We called out to him: 'O Ibrahim, you have fulfilled the vision,' what occurred was that which the situation speaks of and cannot be encompassed by description, from their joy and happiness, and their praising Allah and thanking Him for what He bestowed upon them, from the removal of the great calamity after it had occurred, and what they earned in its midst by preparing their souls for it from reward and recompense and the pleasure of Allah which has no desire beyond it. And His saying: 'Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good' is an explanation for the granting of what He granted them of relief after hardship, and achieving the desire after despair. The clear trial is the evident test in which the sincere are distinguished from others. Or the evident hardship, the difficulty which has no hardship harder than it. The sacrifice: is the name of what is slaughtered. And from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him: It is the ram that Abel offered and was accepted from him, and it was grazing in Paradise until it was used to ransom Ishmael. And from Al-Hasan: It was ransomed by a wild goat that descended upon him from Thabir. And from Ibn Abbas: If that sacrifice had been completed, it would have become a Sunnah and people would have slaughtered their sons.

A great, large-bodied, fat one, and this is the Sunnah regarding the sacrifices. And his saying, blessings and peace be upon him, "Look forward to your sacrifices, for they are your mounts on the Sirat." It is said that it was a ransom for the son of Ibrahim. It was narrated that he ran away from Ibrahim, may peace be upon him, at the jamrah, and he threw seven pebbles at him until he caught him, and thus it remained a Sunnah in throwing. It was narrated that he threw at the devil when he approached him with whispers at the time of slaughtering his son. It was narrated that when he slaughtered him, Gabriel said: Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. The one being slaughtered said: There is no deity but Allah, and Allah is the Greatest. Ibrahim, may peace be upon him, said: Allah is the Greatest, and to Allah belongs all praise. [I did not find it.] It remained a Sunnah: And it is narrated in the story of the one being slaughtered that when he intended to slaughter him, he said: O my son, take the rope and the knife and let us go to the valley to gather firewood. When they reached the valley of Thabir, he informed him of what he was commanded. He said: Tighten my bindings so that I do not tremble, and remove your clothes from me so that no blood splatters on them, which would diminish my reward, and my mother sees it and becomes sad. Sharpen your blade and quickly pass it over my throat so that you may finish me off, for death is severe. And convey my greetings to my mother, and if you see fit to return my shirt to her, do so, for perhaps it would be easier for her. Ibrahim, may peace be upon him, said: You are indeed a good helper, O my son, in the matter of Allah. Then he approached him and kissed him while he was bound, and they were both weeping. Then he placed the knife on his throat, but it did not cut. Because Allah placed a plate of copper on his throat, He said to him: Lay me down on my face, for if you look at my face, you will have mercy on me, and tenderness will overcome you, preventing you from carrying out the command of Allah. So he did. Then he placed the knife on his nape, and the knife turned. And it was called out: O Ibrahim, you have fulfilled the vision. He looked, and there was Gabriel, may peace be upon him, with a horned, white ram. Gabriel and the ram, and Ibrahim and his son, all proclaimed the takbir. And he came to the place of slaughter from Mina and slaughtered it. And it was said that when he reached the place of prostration on the ground, relief came. Abu Hanifa, may Allah have mercy on him, used this verse as evidence for someone who vowed to slaughter his son: he is obliged to slaughter a sheep. If you ask: Who was the one being slaughtered among his two sons? I say: There is disagreement about it. It is reported from Ibn Abbas, Ibn Umar, Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi, and a group of the successors that it was Isma'il. The evidence for this is that the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: "I am the son of the two who were sacrificed." And a Bedouin said to him: O son of the two who were sacrificed. He smiled. He was asked about that, and he said: When Abd al-Muttalib dug the well of Zamzam, he vowed to Allah: If Allah makes his affair easy for him, he will slaughter one of his sons. The lot fell on Abdullah, and his maternal uncles prevented him and said: Ransom your son with a hundred camels. So he ransomed him with a hundred camels, and the second was Isma'il. [This was narrated by al-Hakim and al-Thalabi from the narration of al-Sanabih from Muawiya, may Allah be pleased with him, and it contains a story.] And Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi said: The devout of the Children of Israel used to say when he prayed: O Allah, God of Ibrahim and Isma'il and Israel. So Musa, may peace be upon him, said: O Lord, what is the reason for the devout of the Children of Israel when he prays saying: O Allah, God of Ibrahim and Isma'il and Israel, while I am among them? You have made me hear Your words and chosen me with Your message? He said: O Musa, no one has loved Me as Ibrahim did, and there has never been a choice between Me and anything except that I chose. As for Isma'il, he offered his blood. As for Israel, he never despaired of My mercy in a hardship that befell him. This is indicated by the fact that when Allah completed the story of the one being slaughtered, He said: And We gave him good tidings of Isaac, a prophet. And Muhammad ibn Ka'b said to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz: It is Isma'il. Umar said: This is something I had not considered, and I see it as you said. Then he sent for a Jewish man who had embraced Islam and asked him. He said: The Jews know that it is Isma'il, but they envy you, O Arabs. This is indicated by the fact that the horns of the ram were hung in the Ka'bah in the hands of the sons of Isma'il until the house was burned. And al-Asma'i said: I asked Abu Amr ibn al-Ala about the one being slaughtered, and he said: O Asma'i, where has your intellect gone? When was Isaac in Mecca? It was Isma'il who was in Mecca, and he is the one who built the house with his father, and the place of slaughter is in Mecca.

And among the evidence for this is that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, described him as patient without his brother Isaac in His saying: "And Ismail and Idris and Dhul-Kifl; all were of the patient." This refers to his patience during the slaughter. He also described him as truthful in his promise in His saying: "Indeed, he was true to his promise," because he promised his father patience from himself during the slaughter, and he fulfilled it. Furthermore, Allah gave him the good news of Isaac and his son Jacob in His saying: "So she laughed, and we gave her good tidings of Isaac, and after Isaac, Jacob." If the one to be slaughtered had been Isaac, there would have been a failure of the promise regarding Jacob. And from Ali ibn Abi Talib, Ibn Mas'ud, Al-Abbas, Ata, Ikrimah, and a group of the successors: it is Isaac. The evidence for this is that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, informed about His friend Ibrahim when he migrated to the Levant that he asked for a son, then followed that with the good news of a gentle boy, and then mentioned his vision of slaughtering that boy who was given the good news. This is supported by Jacob's letter to Joseph: from Jacob, Israel of Allah, son of Isaac, the one slaughtered by Allah, son of Ibrahim, the friend of Allah. [This was narrated by Al-Tirmidhi in the rare reports in the twenty-first after two hundred: Umar ibn Abi Umar narrated to us, from Isam ibn Al-Muthanna Al-Homsiy, from his father, from Wahb ibn Munabbih who said: "Jacob wrote a letter in it: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. From Jacob, the Prophet of Allah, to the end of it." And Al-Daraqutni narrated in the rare reports of Malik from the narration of Isaq ibn Wahb Al-Tusi from Ibn Wahb from Malik from Nafi from Ibn Umar, raised: "It was revealed to the Angel of Death to go to Jacob and greet him, and he mentioned the hadith - and in it he said: Write in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, from Jacob, Israel of Allah, son of Isaac, the one slaughtered by Allah, son of Ibrahim, the friend of Allah, to the Aziz of Egypt. As for what follows, we are a family..." He mentioned it at length. Al-Daraqutni said: This is fabricated. And Isaac used to attribute hadith to Ibn Wahb. And it has been previously mentioned in Joseph from another angle.] If you say: It was revealed to Ibrahim, peace be upon him, in a dream to slaughter his son, and he did not slaughter, and it was said to him: You have fulfilled the vision, and he would only fulfill it if the slaughter had been valid, and it was not valid. [Mahamud said: "If you say: It was revealed to Ibrahim in a dream to slaughter his son, and he did not slaughter, and it was said to him: You have fulfilled the vision, and he would only fulfill it if the slaughter had been valid, and it was not valid. He answered that he exerted his utmost and did what a slaughterer does by laying him on his side and passing the blade over his throat, but Allah, glorified and exalted is He, prevented the blade from proceeding in him. This does not diminish Ibrahim's action; do you not see that he is not called a sinner or negligent, but is called obedient and striving, as if the blade had proceeded in him and the veins had burst and the blood had flowed? And this is not a case of abrogation on what was commanded before the action, nor is it a matter of the time of action in anything, as some misconceptions might suggest, leading to distraction in discussing it. His words are concluded." Ahmad said: All that was mentioned is a murmur around the impossibility of abrogation before being able to act, and that is a principle of the Mu'tazilah. As for the people of the Sunnah, they affirm its possibility, because the obligation is established before the ability to act, so it is possible to lift it like death. Also, all abrogation is like that, because the ability to act, according to us, is concurrent, not prior. Then they affirm its occurrence by this verse. The evidence from it is that Ibrahim, peace be upon him, was commanded to slaughter, as indicated by the saying: "Do what you are commanded," and it was abrogated before the ability to act, as evidenced by the turning to the ransom. Hence, Al-Zamakhshari hovers around the fact that he did the utmost he could by laying him on his side and passing the blade over his throat, but it was prevented by a command from Allah, glorified and exalted is He. His purpose in this was one of two things: either the command was directed to him with the preliminaries of slaughter, which had been fulfilled, not the slaughter itself, or the command was directed to the slaughter itself and its undertaking, but he was not able to complete it. Both matters do not absolve him. As for his saying: He was commanded with the preliminaries of slaughter, this is false by his saying: "Indeed, I see in the dream that I am slaughtering you."

And His saying, "Do what you are commanded." As for His saying, "He was not able," it is because the knife was prevented by a command from Allah, the Exalted, after the matter of the slaughter was submitted. The essence of it is that he was not able to perform the commanded slaughter. Thus, abrogation would be accepted if one could perform it, which is exactly what the Mu'tazila denied. Since there was no escape for them in these two responses, some of them resorted to conceding that he was commanded to slaughter, and claimed that he did slaughter, but it was not completed, which is false and has no basis. The context of the verse refutes this claim and dismantles its arguments. I say: He exerted his utmost and did what a slaughterer does: he laid him on his side and passed the knife over his throat. However, Allah, glorified and exalted is He, came with what prevented the knife from proceeding in it. This does not detract from the action of Ibrahim, peace be upon him. Do you not see that he is not called disobedient or negligent, but rather obedient and striving, just as if the knife had proceeded and the veins had been severed and the blood had flowed? This is not a case of abrogation of the commanded act before the action, nor before the time of the action in any way, as some misconceptions might suggest, leading one to engage in discussions about it. If you say: Allah, the Exalted, is the one to be ransomed from, because He is the one commanding the slaughter, how can He be the ransomer until it is said, "And We ransomed him"? I say: The ransomer is Ibrahim, peace be upon him, and Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, granted him the ram to ransom with. He only said, "And We ransomed him" attributing the ransom to the cause which is possible for ransom by His granting. If you say: If what Ibrahim did, laying him down and passing the knife, is considered as slaughter, what is the meaning of the ransom? Ransom is only the release from slaughter by a substitute. I say: It is known by Allah's prevention that the reality of slaughter did not occur from the severing of the veins and the flowing of blood. So Allah granted him the ram to establish his slaughter in place of that reality so that that reality would not occur in the person of Isma'il, but rather in the ram as a substitute for him. If you say: What benefit is there in achieving that reality, when it was sufficient for what Ibrahim did to stand in place of slaughter without any deficiency? I say: The benefit in that is to have what was prevented in its substitute so that the fulfillment of the vow is completed and the commanded act is established from every aspect. If you say: Why is it said here, "Thus do We reward the doers of good," and in other stories, "Indeed, thus"? I say: It was preceded in this story by, "Indeed, thus," as if it was considered sufficient to mention it once instead of mentioning it again.