Abu Ja`afar Muhammad al-Tabari

Whose Akedah Was It, Anyhow?

Today, October 26, 2012, the world’s Muslims will celebrate `Id al-Adha, commemorating Abraham’s willingness to demonstrate his love of God by sacrificing his son.  While most Muslims assume that the son Abraham intended to sacrifice was Ishmael, this was not the unanimous opinion of early Muslims and Qur’anic scholars.