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Prophet Abraham (AS) And Birds
My q is about surah baqarah vers 260. In this we read that Ibrahim as asked God how He resurrects the dead just to assure his heart.
So when ibrahim as has cut the birds in pieces and put their pieces on each different mountains.
Then he calls upon them : and they unite.
But how did ibrahim as saw those pieces coming together? I dont understand this passage.
He saw the pieces flying from diferent moutnains in the sky and uniting? But then how did this reassure his heart, how he witnessing the pieces flying from the mountains in the fiordt place? becaus a human cant see that far?.
Or how is the event explained? He could have put the pieces infront of him and saw them rejoining and becoming alive but this moutains and then calling them.
I don’t get the story.
Can you explain me these verses so that I can understand what is being described here?
Thank you.
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4 Replies
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Prophet Abraham (AS) And Birds
updated 1 month, 1 week ago
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Allah did not show the resurrection of the birds directly nor the birds being made whole (that was not even asked for actually i.e witnessing birds put back into one piece, the request was that to show an event of resurrection).
He told Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) that if you want to confirm that God can resurrect dead, he must follow His terms i.e
1. Train the birds come to you.
2. Then sacrifice them on different places with his own hand to confirm they are dead.
3. Now witness how they, despite properly killed into pieces, come back to life and return to him in one piece when he calls them.Thus confirming Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) that God can indeed raise the dead even if we are dead and our remains are scattered into the earth in pieces and how we too will come running towards God when He will call us, just like Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) called the birds and they came running to him, in perfect shape and they came to him as he trained them to show that these were the same birds he pieced with his own hands, as they recognize him and will fly to him when summoned.
And remember when Abraham said, “My Lord! Show me how you give life to
the dead.” Allah responded, “Do you not believe?” Abraham replied, “Yes
I do, but just so my heart can be reassured.” Allah said, “Then bring
four birds, train them to come to you, then cut them into pieces, and
scatter them on different hilltops. Then call them back, they will fly
to you in haste. And so you will know that Allah is Almighty,
All-Wise.” (Qur’an 2:260)-
I agree with your explanation because if ibrahima as didn’t cut them in pieces then this whole passage wouldn’t make any sense of resurrection just by only training them to come towards him.
And one added q to this is ;
How did ibrahim as knew these were the exact same birds that were united in flesh and flew back to him when he called them? How could he know 100 % sure that these were the exact same birds?
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We don’t know anything 100%. We do not know if our food is free from poison 100% but instead we induce that a reputable seller won’t sell poisoned food, that no one was poisoned in our area so we induce the food is very likely to be poison free. Similarly if you travel to Lahore and see a sign board saying “Lahore 150 km away’, you don’t stop and think “How can I be 100% sure Lahore is 150 km away, it could be more or less or whether even Lahore is in that direction or not, maybe the board sign is lying’ No, you don’t think like that, you induce ‘Well, there is a sign that is likely put by a person and it hasn’t been removed so it is likely true. All the other signs on the way also gave similar information too.”
So we don’t have 100% knowledge of anything, we induce. So the statement that “How could he know 100% sure’ needs to be dropped.
As for your question. Allah specifically told in that passage to Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) to train the birds to come to him so that only these birds would come to him and not a wild bird he did not know. He spent time doing that, learning how they look, behave and speak. Just like you call your pet by their name and only your pet comes without any hesitation while a astray animal does not, shows which animal is your pet and which isn’t (unless you doubt your pet’s identity every time you see them and forget how they look, behave or sound but I assume you don’t, like most owners do when they bond with their trained animals).
So when Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) put the birds on the hilltops as per Allah’s command and then called the birds as per Allah’s command and then the birds that were confirmed to be dead, suddenly came to him obediently (unlike a wild bird), alive and interacted with him, retaining their memories of Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) even after death and resurrection made Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) induce that these were indeed the same birds that came to him just as Allah said they would in the time period when Allah’s instruction were given. The passage even details that they would come to Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) ‘rushing’ as in, they did not even hesitate or get lost, they came to Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) quickly as soon as he called them to show that these were indeed the birds he spent time training and how they were indeed dead yet here they are alive and rushing to him as if they were never killed at all.
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The imperative surhunna ilayka means “make them incline towards you”. Please see Lane’s Lexicon IV, page 1744. It doesn’t mean killing them or cutting them here. There is no mentioning of ‘sacrifice’ here.
This has been explained by Zamakhshari, Abu Muslim, and Razi, i.e. God asked Prophet Abraham to “make the four birds incline towards you”, i.e., “teach them to obey you”. Not kill or sacrifice them.
The moral of this story has been pointed out convincingly by the famous commentator Abu Muslim (as quoted by Razi): “If man is able – as he undoubtedly is – to train birds in such a way as to make them obey his call, then it is obvious that God, whose will all things obey, can call life into being by simply decreeing, .Be!”‘
See excerpt from Lane for clarification.
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