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Can Charity Be Given Instead Of Animal Sacrifice?
Some people think that instead of sacrificing sheep on ‘īd, one can donate an equivalent in money to charities. This notion is not correct and requires a little elaboration:
For every human being who believes in Allah, there are two distinct spheres of interaction in which relationships come into existence. The first sphere covers a person’s relationship with Allah, while the second one constitutes a person’s relationship with his fellow human beings. Islam and all divinely revealed religions do nothing but guide human intellect in these two spheres. A person’s relationship with Allah manifests itself in worship, which in Islam has some distinct forms. Similarly, a person’s relationship with his brethren takes the form of social interaction, which again has many areas. Total or partial negation of any one of these spheres results in an unbalanced life. Extremism in the first sphere breeds monasticism and asceticism while extremism in the second one breeds materialism. Islam wants every person to create a balance in his life by giving each sphere its due. Similarly, it wants a person to undertake the various prescribed forms of interaction in both spheres since each has a definite purpose.
In the first sphere, Islam has prescribed specific forms of worship of which one form cannot replace the other, since each has its own purpose and objective. Animal Sacrifice is one such form of worship. It has an underlying philosophy which must be well-appreciated in order to offer it in letter and spirit. Just as salāh cannot replace zakāh and vice versa, animal sacrifice also cannot be replaced by zakāh or charity. What animal sacrifice induces in a person, zakāh or salāh or hajj do not.
The reason for animal sacrifice on ‘īd is to commemorate a great event which depicts an extraordinary expression of submission to the command of Allah – the essence of Islam. The Prophet Abraham (sws) while obeying the Almighty set a platinum example of this submission. When we offer an animal in sacrifice, we actually symbolize our intention that we are ready to lay down our lives for the cause of Allah whenever required by Him, just as His great Prophet Abraham (sws) had once done so with spirit and splendor, glory and grandeur.
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8 Replies
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Can Charity Be Given Instead Of Animal Sacrifice?
updated 7 months, 1 week ago
6 Members
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8
Replies
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Okay so my question is due to the pandemic going on in the world, Many people are losing their jobs don’t have money to feel their families. With my understanding they would want help with feeding their families, If we have the only limited amount to be spent can we make a choice of rather sacrificing an animal or helping many families with that same amount of money?
thankyou
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Thanks for questions, pls. see if this addresses your concern.
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Thanks for the video link. I did listen to it and i do understand in normal circumstances this makes sense. But i’m just wondering If i do ask people who are in very bad shape due to this pandemic they would want me to help them in many other ways , The cost of buying an animal for sacrifice can help many many families in feeding their familes for few weeks. The example is given like we pray to allah we give zakat … we know that’s farz in our religion so are you referring sacrificing an animal is also farz? and where does it say?
thanks
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As a principle, animal sacrifice is a voluntary (Nafli) ibadah. There is no compulsion to sacrifice animals at all cost. Also ALLAH has given us both conscience and consciousness, so we can always use that to make a better decision considering the socioeconomic condition both at micro and macro levels.
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Ghamidi Sahab has commented on the said matter in the context of the current pandemic.
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I agree that we must not undervalue the worship of sacrifice and its importance in manifesting our true love for God but I think its true for normal circumstances. In situations of hardship like the one we are going through, we may evaluate the situation in our family and locality when making such determination. The other way of looking at this matter is that a great majority of even middle class people can’t afford to eat meat these days, let alone poor people. We can offer the sacrifice and then distribute most of the meat among the needy. We can even send the money to charities and let them sacrifice on our behalf and distribute the meat. I know families personally who only eat meat during Eid Al Adha time. I think it will serve both purposes.
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Beside current situation, helping other human being, providing some comfort in other lives, know their need and circumstances does not undermine your love to God, does not circumvent sprit and commemoration.Personally I am doing it for a long time and it give me more happiness. It is true Salah can’t be replaced by fasting nor Haj by Zakah, but they are bases of Islam, Any such act like commemoration are not equal to five pillars of Islam.
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In the larger interest of muslim community and islaam hazrat umar raziullah anhu once decided to declare maali ganeemat as maali fie, while as maali ganeemat and maali fie are to be distributed differently as per the quraan. Accordingly same yardstick can be applied in the case of sacrifice as well.
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