Every year, as the blessed days of Dhul-Hijja arrive and the air fills with takbeer, we are invited to remember one of the most profound stories in all of human history; a father, a son, a knife, and the unwavering love of two souls surrendered entirely to Allah (SWT).
We know the story. Ibrahim (AS) received a command in a dream to sacrifice his son, his beloved Ismail (AS), the child he had waited lifetimes for. When Ismail (AS), was informed by his father, he did not run nor argue. He said, in words that shakes us from within, : "Do what you are commanded. You will find me, if Allah wills, of the steadfast." (Quran, 37:102). Two people. One moment. An entire spiritual legacy built not on what they gained but on what each was, but on what they were each willing to give up.
We often focus on Ibrahim (AS) in this story, and rightly so. His test was unimaginable. But pause for a moment on Ismail (AS). He was young, full of life, and with a whole future ahead of him. And yet he chose, consciously, willingly, to offer that life back to the One who gave it. This is the part of Eid al-Adha we sometimes rush past in the excitement of Eid prayers, new clothes, and our celebrations. The story is not just about a father's obedience. It is about a son's surrender. It is about two people, in their own different ways, choosing something greater than themselves. And Allah (SWT), in His infinite mercy, did not take the sacrifice He was offered. He accepted the intention. The willingness. The letting go.
It is this spirit of letting go that feels so countercultural today. We live in a world saturated with the language of the self, "put yourself first, protect your energy, you cannot pour from an empty cup." These ideas are not entirely wrong; Islam itself recognizes our obligations to our own bodies and minds. But somewhere along the way, the conversation shifted. The "self" became not just something to care for, but something to center on always, in every situation, above all else. The result is that we are, by many measures, lonelier, more anxious, and less connected to each other than any generation before us. We optimize our mornings, curate our boundaries, and invest in personal growth — and yet something feels hollow. What is missing, perhaps, is Ismail (AS)'s answer: “you will find me of the steadfast.”
What is also missing is a return to something our tradition has always held dear: haqooq ul ibaad, the rights we owe one another. In Islam, the rights of people carry a particular weight. Scholars have long noted that while Allah (SWT) may forgive shortcomings in our worship out of His boundless mercy, the rights of His creation demand to be honoured. These rights live in our daily lives in unglamorous, unposted, unrecognized moments. They are in the extra hour we give a struggling friend, even when we are tired. They are in the desire we quietly set aside so a family member's need can come first. They are in the patience we extend to a parent, a sibling, a neighbour, even when everything in us wants to simply retreat into our own world. This is the sacrifice that Eid asks us to remember. Not just the animal. Not just the historical moment on the mountain. But the daily, deeply human practice of choosing others, not out of depletion or obligation, but because we understand, as Ibrahim and Ismail (AS) understood, that giving is its own form of closeness to Allah (SWT).
And here is something our tradition has always known, and what modern psychology is only beginning to affirm: sacrifice does not diminish us. It builds us. When we let go of a desire for someone we love, we practice humility. When we show up for someone at cost to our own comfort, we develop empathy, that increasingly rare capacity to truly feel the weight of another person's world. When we forgive a wrong we had every right to hold onto, we become larger inside, not smaller. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: "The most beloved of people to Allah are those most beneficial to people." (Al-Tabarani). Benefit, by its very nature, requires something from us. It asks us to extend beyond ourselves. In a culture that tells us empathy is a liability and softness is weakness, Eid al-Adha stands as a quiet, annual counter argument; the ones who were willing to give everything were the ones Allah loved most.
As Muslims navigating life in Canada, many of us feel this tension acutely, the pull between the fierce individualism that surrounds us and the deep collectivism our faith and our cultures were built on. We are told to hustle for ourselves, to set limits, to say no. And sometimes, yes, we must. Burnout is real. Rest is sunnah. But there is a kind of healing that does not come from a spa day or a solo trip or a carefully maintained boundary. It comes from the phone call you make to your parents just to say salam, just to ask how they are. It comes from tending to family ties even when differences run deep. It comes from visiting the auntie nobody visits anymore. ] It comes from the meal you drop off without being asked. It comes from the argument you choose not to win. It comes from being the person in the room who asks, "How are you?" and then stays to listen. These small sacrifices are not losses. They are, in the truest sense, qurbani-offerings. And like the offering of Ibrahim and Ismail (AS), Allah (SWT) sees them, even when no one else does.
Eid al-Adha does not ask us to be self-destructive, nor does it glorify suffering for its own sake. What it celebrates is something more precise and more beautiful: the freedom that comes when we loosen our grip on our own ego, our own agenda, our own wants, and discover that what we thought we needed was never the point. Ibrahim (AS) did not lose his son. Ismail (AS) did not lose his life. But they gained something no comfort or security could have given them: the nearness to Allah (SWT). The rank of the beloved. This Eid, may we each find our own small mountain. May we each find the thing we are gripping too tightly and practice, even just a little, the sacred art of letting go.