Twice in one life a father stood over a son with death between them. The first time, Ibrahim's own father lit a fire and threw him into it to kill him. The second time, Ibrahim himself raised a knife over his boy. And Mufti Menk opens this final part of the story by laying the two scenes side by side, because the lesson hides in the difference: in the first, a father was the loser and the believing son was saved; in the second, both father and son had submitted, and so both of them won. The only one who ever loses in these stories is Shaytan.
This is day thirteen, the climax of the Ibrahim arc. By its end you will have stood at the place where Eid al-Adha comes from, watched two men lay the foundations of the Ka'bah, and heard the du'a that would be answered, centuries later, by a man born in that very city ﷺ.
Two fathers, two sons, one rule
فَلَمَّا بَلَغَ مَعَهُ ٱلسَّعْىَ قَالَ يَٰبُنَىَّ إِنِّىٓ أَرَىٰ فِى ٱلْمَنَامِ أَنِّىٓ أَذْبَحُكَ فَٱنظُرْ مَاذَا تَرَىٰ ۚ قَالَ يَٰٓأَبَتِ ٱفْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ ۖ سَتَجِدُنِىٓ إِن شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
“And when he reached with him [the age of] exertion, he said, "O my son, indeed I have seen in a dream that I [must] sacrifice you, so see what you think." He said, "O my father, do as you are commanded. You will find me, if Allāh wills, of the steadfast."”
Surah as-Saffat 37:102 Read 37:102 with tafsir
Mufti Menk draws the comparison himself, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. Years earlier, Ibrahim's father had wanted him dead for breaking the idols, and a fire was lit and a son was thrown in. Now Allah asks Ibrahim, peace be upon him, to give up his own son, the boy he had waited a lifetime for. A father and a son in both scenes. But in the first, the father was the disbeliever and lost, while Allah's help reached the believer in the flames. In the second, father and son had both surrendered, so there was no loser among them at all.
The dream was the command, and Ibrahim did not hide it or soften it. He turned to the boy and told him plainly, and the answer that came back is one of the most astonishing lines in the Qur'an: do what you have been ordered, you will find me, if Allah wills, among the patient. No panic, no bargaining. Two people, looking at the hardest instruction a human being has ever been given, and choosing to obey.
This is the rule the whole pillar keeps circling back to, and Mufti Menk says it again here: victory belongs to those who firmly believe, every single time. The Prophet ﷺ would later give it a name when he faced his battles, ihda al-husnayayn, one of two good outcomes: either we are granted victory, or we are granted martyrdom, and a believer wins on both. A heart like that does not cling to this life so hard that it forgets it was always going to end.
The ransom, and where your Eid comes from
فَلَمَّآ أَسْلَمَا وَتَلَّهُۥ لِلْجَبِينِ
“And when they had both submitted and he put him down upon his forehead,”
Surah as-Saffat 37:103 Read 37:103 with tafsir
وَفَدَيْنَٰهُ بِذِبْحٍ عَظِيمٍ
“And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice,”
Surah as-Saffat 37:107 Read 37:107 with tafsir
They had both submitted. The Qur'an chooses that word, aslamaa, the same root as Islam, the same root as Muslim, and lays the boy down on his forehead so the father would not have to watch his face. The knife was at his throat. And then the call came: O Ibrahim, you have already fulfilled the vision. The test was never about the blood. It was about the willingness, and the willingness had been given in full.
So Allah ransomed the boy with a tremendous sacrifice, a ram in his place, and left for Ibrahim a name honored among every generation that came after: peace upon Ibrahim. That is not a detail buried in an old book. That is the origin of your Eid. Every year, at the close of Hajj, the whole Muslim world slaughters an animal at Eid al-Adha and remembers this exact moment, this father and this son who handed Allah the dearest thing they had. The stones the pilgrims throw at the jamarat, the steps they walk, all of it traces back to a family who refused to keep anything back from their Lord.
And here is the quiet weight of it: Allah did not actually want the child taken. He wanted the heart that would give him up. Mufti Menk's reading lands gently on you, because you are not asked for a son. But you are asked, in your own way, what you are still clutching that you have not yet been willing to lay down for the One who gave it to you in the first place.
A knock at Ismail's door
Mufti Menk now tells a story he is careful to flag as a sound, authentic narration, not a folk tale. Ismail, peace be upon him, had grown and married into the tribe of Jurhum and settled in Makkah, while his father Ibrahim travelled back and forth between Makkah and the land of Sham. One day Ibrahim came, knocked, and a woman he did not recognize opened the door. He asked after her life, and she poured out complaints: her husband left them with little, life was hard, there was barely enough. She did not know who this elderly traveller was. He told her only this: give your husband my greeting, and tell him to change the threshold of his door.
When Ismail returned he sensed at once that his father had been there, because the bond between them was a bond of faith, not just of blood. He asked what the visitor had said. When she repeated the message about the threshold, Ismail understood instantly: his father was telling him to let this marriage go. He sent her back to her people, with kindness, and Jurhum received her and married him to another.
Time passed, and Ibrahim came again. This time the woman at the door, asked the same questions, answered only: alhamdulillah, we are well, we thank Allah in every condition. No complaint, no airing of private struggles to a stranger. Ibrahim left the same kind of message: tell him to keep the threshold of his door. And Ismail understood that too: this one is good, keep her. Mufti Menk pauses on the gratitude itself, the habit of saying alhamdulillah ala kulli hal, thanks to Allah in every state, and on a son so attuned to his father the prophet that a single coded sentence was enough. He notes the limit too, half smiling: a young man once asked him, so must I divorce my wife if my father says so? Only, he answered, if your father is Ibrahim and you are Ismail.
He looked like the Prophet ﷺ
There is a thread inside that story that ties this whole pillar together. When the second wife described the visitor, she was describing Ibrahim, and Mufti Menk reaches for a sound narration to tell us what Ibrahim looked like. On the night of the Ascension, the Prophet ﷺ said he saw the prophets one after another, and when he came to Ibrahim he said the closest likeness to him is your own companion, meaning himself. Ibrahim and Muhammad ﷺ looked alike. They were one lineage, and Allah took them both as His close friends: the two are called al-Khalilayn, the two beloved friends of Allah.
Sit with that for a moment. The man raising this story's house, and the man who would one day stand inside it, shared a face and a friendship with Allah across two thousand years. This is what the pillar keeps promising you: the prophets are not separate fables. They are one family, walking in a single direction, toward the final one ﷺ.
Show us how to worship You
وَإِذْ يَرْفَعُ إِبْرَٰهِۦمُ ٱلْقَوَاعِدَ مِنَ ٱلْبَيْتِ وَإِسْمَٰعِيلُ رَبَّنَا تَقَبَّلْ مِنَّآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
“And [mention] when Abraham was raising the foundations of the House and [with him] Ishmael, [saying], "Our Lord, accept [this] from us. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:127 Read 2:127 with tafsir
رَبَّنَا وَٱجْعَلْنَا مُسْلِمَيْنِ لَكَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِنَآ أُمَّةً مُّسْلِمَةً لَّكَ وَأَرِنَا مَنَاسِكَنَا وَتُبْ عَلَيْنَآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلتَّوَّابُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
“Our Lord, and make us Muslims [in submission] to You and from our descendants a Muslim nation [in submission] to You. And show us our rites [of worship] and accept our repentance. Indeed, You are the Accepting of Repentance, the Merciful.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:128 Read 2:128 with tafsir
Now the two of them are kneeling in the dirt of a barren valley, lifting the foundations of the Ka'bah stone by stone, and the Qur'an lets you hear what they whispered as they worked. First, no claim, only humility: our Lord, accept this from us, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Then a plea for their own souls and the souls that would follow: make the two of us submitters to You, and from our offspring a nation submitted to You.
And then a request Mufti Menk lingers on, because the whole of how Muslims worship is folded inside it: wa arina manasikana, show us our rites. Show us, ya Allah, how You want to be worshipped. Ibrahim, who built the house with his own hands, did not presume to invent a single act of worship to go with it. He asked to be taught. From this, Mufti Menk draws the rule of the Sharia plainly: every act of worship is forbidden unless Allah revealed it. We do not worship Allah in whatever way feels good to us; we worship Him the way He instructs, the times, the postures, the words, all of it given, never guessed. It is the same reason a Muslim today does nothing in prayer that the Prophet ﷺ did not do, because to drift from that is to drift from the religion of Ibrahim himself.
Announce the pilgrimage
وَأَذِّن فِى ٱلنَّاسِ بِٱلْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَىٰ كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ
“And proclaim to the people the ḥajj [pilgrimage]; they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel; they will come from every distant pass -”
Surah al-Hajj 22:27 Read 22:27 with tafsir
Allah answered the prayer to be shown the rites, and the first of them was Hajj. He told Ibrahim to do something that, by every human measure, made no sense: stand up in an empty valley, alone with a tiny community, no microphone, no roads, no message that could carry past the next dune, and call the whole of mankind to come. Announce the pilgrimage. The carrying of the call, Allah said, is My concern, not yours.
Mufti Menk asks you to taste the fruit of that verse with your own eyes. There are close to two billion Muslims on the earth, and only two or three million can be fitted into Makkah at one time, so heavy is the demand that nations are placed on a quota and still cannot meet it. That crush of longing, every year, in every language, is the answer to one man's voice in an empty valley. It is also the lesson Mufti Menk pulls out for anyone who ever felt their good work was too small to matter: do the work of Allah sincerely, and never mind how few are sitting in front of you. If it is one person, it is enough. Allah carries what He chooses to grow.
And so the pilgrimage Ibrahim and Ismail were given is the pilgrimage you will one day walk. The Prophet ﷺ came to restore it to its purity after generations had buried it under idols, but the rites themselves run straight back to a father and a son laying stones and asking to be taught.
The messenger they prayed for
رَبَّنَا وَٱبْعَثْ فِيهِمْ رَسُولًا مِّنْهُمْ يَتْلُوا۟ عَلَيْهِمْ ءَايَٰتِكَ وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ وَٱلْحِكْمَةَ وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ ۚ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ
“Our Lord, and send among them a messenger from themselves who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and wisdom and purify them. Indeed, You are the Exalted in Might, the Wise."”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:129 Read 2:129 with tafsir
وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمُ رَبِّ ٱجْعَلْ هَٰذَا ٱلْبَلَدَ ءَامِنًا وَٱجْنُبْنِى وَبَنِىَّ أَن نَّعْبُدَ ٱلْأَصْنَامَ
“And [mention, O Muḥammad], when Abraham said, "My Lord, make this city [i.e., Makkah] secure and keep me and my sons away from worshipping idols.”
Surah Ibrahim 14:35 Read 14:35 with tafsir
Still kneeling at the foundations, Ibrahim made the du'a that this whole pillar has quietly been waiting for: our Lord, and raise up among them a messenger from themselves, who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and the wisdom and purify them. He prayed for a Prophet to come from his own offspring, in this city, for this nation. Centuries passed. And then a man was born in Makkah, a son of Ismail, who recited Allah's verses, taught the Book and the wisdom, and purified the people. The Prophet ﷺ himself said it: I am the answer to the du'a of my father Ibrahim. When you sit and read these stories, you are reading a prayer being answered in slow motion across two thousand years.
Ibrahim also begged for two things this city carries to this day: make this place secure, and keep me and my children away from worshipping idols. Makkah became a haram, a sanctuary where even the insects and animals are not to be harmed without cause, safe in a way few places on earth are, all of it the fruit of that du'a. And here the line to the Seerah pulls tight. Ibrahim raised a house for the worship of Allah alone and prayed it would never hold an idol, yet his descendants filled it with three hundred and sixty of them. It took the very messenger he had prayed for, walking back into Makkah at the Conquest, to clear that house with his own hands and return it to what its builder intended. The grandfather laid the stones and made the du'a; the grandson ﷺ answered it and swept the house clean.
There is even an echo of Ibrahim left inside your own Qur'an. His scriptures are long gone, but Allah preserved a line from them for you: that you are giving preference to this world, while the Hereafter is better and more lasting (Surah al-A'la 87:16-17), and tells you it was written in the scrolls of Ibrahim and Musa. The man who would give up his son for Allah lived by exactly that, and it survived to be read by you tonight.
The line he left behind
وَٱذْكُرْ فِى ٱلْكِتَٰبِ إِسْمَٰعِيلَ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ صَادِقَ ٱلْوَعْدِ وَكَانَ رَسُولًا نَّبِيًّا
“And mention in the Book, Ishmael. Indeed, he was true to his promise, and he was a messenger and a prophet.”
Surah Maryam 19:54 Read 19:54 with tafsir
وَكَانَ يَأْمُرُ أَهْلَهُۥ بِٱلصَّلَوٰةِ وَٱلزَّكَوٰةِ وَكَانَ عِندَ رَبِّهِۦ مَرْضِيًّا
“And he used to enjoin on his people prayer and zakāh and was to his Lord pleasing [i.e., accepted by Him].”
Surah Maryam 19:55 Read 19:55 with tafsir
Ibrahim, peace be upon him, was the most grateful of servants and never once ungrateful, and when at last he died he was buried in the land known today as al-Khalil, Hebron, shrouded by his own children, his name meaning the very thing he was: the friend. But what he passed on outlived him by an ocean. Mufti Menk has Allah, in effect, hand Ibrahim the reward for a lifetime of surrender: prophethood and revelation kept inside his family. The Qur'an then reads out the names like a roll of honor: Ishaq, Yaqub, Yusuf, Musa, Harun, Dawud, Sulayman, Zakariyya, Yahya, Isa, Ilyas, on and on, a chain of prophets running down from one obedient man.
Mufti Menk turns this on our envy. People are jealous of a little wealth, a little knowledge, a little status. Allah answers that the family of Ibrahim was given the three things anyone could ever covet at once: the Book, wisdom, and a kingdom, prophets who were also kings like Dawud and Sulayman. Jealousy will not move any of it to you; ask Allah and work, and it will come. Of the two sons, the Qur'an gives most of the story to Ismail, the elder, but seals his portrait in a line worth carrying: he was true to his promise, a messenger and a prophet, who kept calling his family to prayer and to charity, and was pleasing to his Lord. A father who would sacrifice his son, a son who kept his every word: this is the house your faith was built in, and the door it opens onto is the Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ himself.