Animals of the Signs · The great ransom of Mina
كبش الفداء
The Ram of the Sacrifice
“And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice”, the animal that ended human sacrifice.
The account
At the instant Ibrahim's knife had nothing left to prove, heaven substituted a ram: "And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice" (37:107). The Qur'an calls the animal azim, great, because of what it carried: the abolition, inside the very story that seemed to demand it, of offering human beings to God. Every Eid al-Adha since is that morning re-enacted; the Prophet ﷺ sacrificed two horned, black-and-white rams with his own hand, saying the takbir and setting his foot on their sides (Bukhari 5565). The Codex places the ram where the tradition places it: the most consequential animal in the history of worship, one creature standing in, forever, for every child of Adam laid on every altar of false devotion.
The facts
- Verse37:107, dhibh azim
- AbolishedHuman sacrifice
- Living riteEid al-Adha
The Qur'an on it
Read beside it
The words
On the Path