Website: www.aaiil.uk

Abraham and the giving of life to dead birds —
Lesson for propagating Islam to the West

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 20 June 2025

“And when Abraham said, My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead, He said: Do you not believe? He said: Yes, but that my heart may be at ease. He said: Then take four birds, then tame them to incline to you, then place on every mountain a part of them, then call them, they will come to you flying; and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise.” — ch. 2, Al-Baqarah, v. 260

وَ اِذۡ قَالَ اِبۡرٰہٖمُ رَبِّ اَرِنِیۡ کَیۡفَ تُحۡیِ الۡمَوۡتٰی ؕ قَالَ اَوَ لَمۡ تُؤۡمِنۡ ؕ قَالَ بَلٰی وَ لٰکِنۡ لِّیَطۡمَئِنَّ قَلۡبِیۡ ؕ قَالَ فَخُذۡ اَرۡبَعَۃً مِّنَ الطَّیۡرِ فَصُرۡہُنَّ اِلَیۡکَ ثُمَّ اجۡعَلۡ عَلٰی کُلِّ جَبَلٍ مِّنۡہُنَّ جُزۡءًا ثُمَّ ادۡعُہُنَّ یَاۡتِیۡنَکَ سَعۡیًا ؕ وَ اعۡلَمۡ اَنَّ اللّٰہَ عَزِیۡزٌ حَکِیۡمٌ ﴿۲۶۰﴾٪

The verse which I have recited shows that when we believe something, in particular a religious teaching, we should not merely accept it as a belief, but try to satisfy our hearts that it is true. The Holy Prophet Muhammad has said: “We have more right to express doubt than Abraham when he said: ‘My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead’, He (Allah) said: ‘Do you not believe?’ He said: ‘Yes, but that my heart may be at ease’.” (Bukhari, hadith 4537). What the Holy Prophet meant was that since even a man of the high, deep and unwavering faith of Abraham, wanted his heart to be satisfied about a belief which he was being asked by God to accept, how much more is anyone else in need of such satisfaction. This verse and this hadith show a Muslim has the right to seek satisfaction of heart regarding a matter of belief. Unfortunately, our religious leaders deny this right to Muslims.

It is generally considered that what Abraham was asking about in his question, “My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead”, is the belief in life after death, which all prophets taught, and which we hold as well, that a human being, after his or her death, will come to life again to enter the next world. On the basis that this was his question, many stories have been made up about how Allah answered it. A common story is that, following Allah’s command about taking four birds, etc., Abraham took four birds and after taming them, he slaughtered them, cut them into pieces, mixed them together, and distributed parts of this mixture on the hills around him. It is said that Abraham kept the heads of the birds in his hands. Then, as Allah had commanded him, he called out to them, and all the pieces re-assembled themselves into the original birds without heads. These birds then quickly flew back to Abraham to collect their heads from him. It is further said that when Abraham gave a head to a headless bird the bird only accepted it if it had been his head, and not if it had been another bird’s head.

To make the Quran support this bizarre story, traditional scholars have assumed that the verse has omitted certain words. Many of them say that after the words “then tame them to incline to you” and before the next words, “then place on every mountain a part of them”, the words “then slaughter them and cut them into pieces” are to be understood as if these were present. Others translate “tame them” as “cut them”. I have checked various English translations of the Quran by Muslims and find that a dozen or more of them translate this verse in this way, bringing in cutting and slaughtering of the birds. This is under the influence of this baseless story.

What Abraham was actually asking Allah about, I will explain shortly. Even if we suppose that he was asking about how humans will be raised to life after physical death in this world, then what Allah did according to this story would not answer his question. In this story what Allah is showing Abraham is that He can raise dead birds to life. But Abraham already believes that Allah can do this. He is not asking Allah to show him that He can raise the dead to life but to explain how He does it. For example, if you were to ask a masterchef how do you cook a certain dish, and he cooked it for you and placed it before you, you are none the wiser about how he did it.

The question Abraham is asking is about the mission that God entrusted to him, of giving spiritual life to members of his community and for their reformation. His people were so bitterly opposed to accepting his message that he could see no prospect of success. He turned to Allah and asked Him to show him a way by which he would know that they would be raised to spiritual life at his hands. Allah gave him the example of birds. The Quran elsewhere compares human beings to birds and animals saying:

“And there is no animal in the earth, nor a bird that flies on its two wings, but (they are) communities like yourselves” (6:38).

This verse works both ways. It tells us that animals and birds too live in the form of communities. We see that around us. But it also conveys to us that among humans, people are like animals and birds. Those who are like animals stick to the ground and pursue only their earthly desires, and those who are like birds aspire to fly high above these desires. What Allah explained to Abraham was that just as birds are repelled by anyone approaching them and fly away out of fear, this is how people to whom you are preaching are running away from you without listening to your message. Compare this with what Noah said to God:

“My Lord, I have called my people night and day, but my call has only made them flee the more” (71:5–6).

The more he calls them, the more they flee.

Allah said to Abraham that if you tame some birds to be attracted to you, then the opposite will happen: even if they are far from you, when you call them they will fly back to you. So preach to people as if you are taming birds. Experts on taming birds advise that this has to be done slowly and patiently. First you must gain the bird’s trust by approaching it in a manner that it doesn’t find threatening. You must talk to it in a soothing way to reduce its anxiety. You need to show hospitality to it by offering it food. Taming of birds is gradual and takes time. But when the atmosphere is created in which people listen to you because they are no longer afraid, then your message will start taking root so that when you call them they will come running. A prophet must remove people’s fears that his message is a threat or attack upon them. He must show them that he only has their good in his heart, and he has no other motive for spreading his message. He is not seeking control over them.

When people perceive you and your message as a threat they will run away from you. This gets worse if it is not merely their perception that your message is a threat but you yourself present it like a threat. If people see preachers of Islam issuing threats that they will attack anyone physically who dares to criticise their religion, or they associate Islam with followers who wield knives trying to kill people while shouting Allahu Akbar, they will not listen any further to its message.

Allah then says to Abraham that after taming them, which means they have listened to his message and accepted it, if he were to place them separately on distant hills in four directions and call out to them, they would come back flying to him. Repulsion is converted into attraction. In another place the Quran mentions a prayer of Abraham some of which is as follows:

“Our Lord, I have settled a part of my offspring in a valley unproductive of fruit near Your Sacred House, our Lord, that they may keep up prayer; so make the hearts of some people yearn towards them” (14:37).

Abraham established the pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah and called people to it, and this later became the Hajj that Muslims perform. In acceptance of this prayer, people’s hearts all over the world yearn to perform the Hajj, or at least visit the Ka‘bah. They desire to go there not because anyone is forcing them but because of this yearning in their hearts.

Abraham couldn’t see that his preaching would be successful, so much so that he turned to God said that I do believe your promise but I want to know how it will come about. The fulfilment of this promise given to Abraham, of birds flying to him in response to his call, came about through the Holy Prophet Muhammad. At his appearance, the Arabs were a dead nation. They, like suspicious birds, remained away from the Holy Prophet’s call. Yet by the end of the Holy Prophet’s life, delegation upon delegation from remote parts of Arabia came to see him to accept Islam at his hand. The year before his well-known Farewell Pilgrimage is even known as the Year of Deputations.

The entire Arab nation, which was regarded as wild and untameable, responded to him saying: “We hear and we obey”. I came across a Christian’s website about the Bible which says that according to the Bible “The children of Ishmael have proven to be wild, they cannot be tamed by man. It is only God that can tame the children of Ishmael…” (https://kjvbibletruth.com/2015/11/17/ishmael-prophecy/) He is quite right, although he doesn’t realize or doesn’t know that these children of Ishmael were in fact tamed by the Holy Prophet Muhammad, and he only tamed them because he was sent by God to do so. This is the giving life to the dead.

The Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, has referred to his mission in terms of catching birds. In my last Khutba I mentioned that he interpreted the saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad that the sun will rise in the west as follows:

“but what has been shown to me in a vision is this — that the rising of the sun from the West signifies that the Western world which has been involved of old in the darkness of unbelief and error shall be made to shine with the sun of Truth, and those people shall have their share of Islam.”

He follows this by describing his vision. He writes:

“I saw that I was standing on a pulpit in the city of London and explaining the truth of Islam in a well-reasoned speech in the English language; and, after this, I caught a large number of birds that were sitting on small trees, and in colour they were white, and their size was probably the size of a partridge. I inter­preted this dream as meaning that, though I may not personally go there, yet my writings would spread among those people and many righteous Englishmen would accept the truth.” (Izalah Auham, p. 515–516)

To tame birds you have to convince them that you are not a threat to them, and they are secure in your presence. This is why Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad again and again stressed to non-Muslims that Islam, as presented by his Movement, teaches Muslims to live as peaceful, law-abiding and loyal citizens of any non-Muslim majority country which grants them freedom to practice and preach Islam. Islam does not pose a threat to their governments. He also vigorously countered the idea that Islam teaches Muslims to conduct a Jihad to kill non-Muslims or that Islam spreads by the force of any army or a state. How can people listen to your message if they are feeling threatened by you and are trying to protect themselves from you?

So may Allah enable us to present the message of Islam with patience and in a gentle, soft-spoken way, and to communicate with people with love, in a rational manner, affectionately with no hatred in our hearts nor using hurtful words.  ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk