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Qualities of Abraham: His rational and forgiving nature

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 30 May 2025

“And mention Abraham in the Book. Surely he was a truthful man, a prophet. When he said to his sire: My sire, why do you worship something which does not hear, nor see, nor can it help you at all? My sire, to me indeed has come the knowledge which has not come to you; so follow me, I will guide you on a right path.” — ch. 19, Maryam, v. 41–43	وَ اذۡکُرۡ فِی الۡکِتٰبِ اِبۡرٰہِیۡمَ ۬ؕ اِنَّہٗ کَانَ صِدِّیۡقًا نَّبِیًّا ﴿۴۱﴾ اِذۡ قَالَ لِاَبِیۡہِ یٰۤاَبَتِ لِمَ تَعۡبُدُ مَا لَا یَسۡمَعُ وَ لَا یُبۡصِرُ وَ لَا یُغۡنِیۡ عَنۡکَ شَیۡئًا ﴿۴۲﴾ یٰۤاَبَتِ اِنِّیۡ قَدۡ جَآءَنِیۡ مِنَ الۡعِلۡمِ مَا لَمۡ یَاۡتِکَ فَاتَّبِعۡنِیۡۤ اَہۡدِکَ صِرَاطًا سَوِیًّا ﴿۴۳﴾
“He said: Do you dislike my gods, Abraham? If you do not stop, I will certainly drive you away. And leave me for a time. He said: Peace be on you! I shall pray my Lord to forgive you. Surely He is ever Kind to me. And I withdraw from you and what you call on besides Allah, and I call upon my Lord. Maybe I shall not remain unblessed in calling upon my Lord.” — ch. 19, Maryam, v. 46–48	قَالَ اَرَاغِبٌ اَنۡتَ عَنۡ اٰلِہَتِیۡ یٰۤـاِبۡرٰہِیۡمُ ۚ لَئِنۡ لَّمۡ تَنۡتَہِ لَاَرۡجُمَنَّکَ وَ اہۡجُرۡنِیۡ مَلِیًّا ﴿۴۶﴾ قَالَ سَلٰمٌ عَلَیۡکَ ۚ سَاَسۡتَغۡفِرُ لَکَ رَبِّیۡ ؕ اِنَّہٗ کَانَ بِیۡ حَفِیًّا ﴿۴۷﴾ وَ اَعۡتَزِلُکُمۡ وَ مَا تَدۡعُوۡنَ مِنۡ دُوۡنِ اللّٰہِ وَ اَدۡعُوۡا رَبِّیۡ ۫ۖ عَسٰۤی اَلَّاۤ اَکُوۡنَ بِدُعَآءِ رَبِّیۡ شَقِیًّا ﴿۴۸﴾

The Hajj or Pilgrimage to Makkah will begin next week. We all know of the connection of the prophet Abraham with this institution. Abraham lived about 2000 years before Jesus, which is about 2500 years before the Holy Prophet Muhammad. According to the Quran, Abraham rebuilt the Ka‘bah as a monument to belief in the oneness of God and established this Pilgrimage for people to perform. The Arabs before the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad had also long believed that Abraham rebuilt the Ka‘bah and established the Pilgrimage, which they used to perform as well. And, of course, at the time of the Pilgrimage the Eid-ul-Adha takes place, at which Muslims commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son at the command of God.

If I may say so, all this might create the impression that Abraham was a fanatical, unthinking, blind believer, who was prepared to do God’s bidding no matter how much suffering his actions caused to other people. After all, did he not abandon his wife and infant son in a wilderness where there were no means of food or drink, and was he not ready to run a knife across his teenage son’s throat on the basis of a dream?

If we study other incidents of Abraham as related in the Quran we find that, quite the opposite of this, he was a very rationally-minded person who reasoned things out, he was unsatisfied with accepting anything blindly, he searched for the truth with his heart and mind, he presented arguments to people; and at the same time he was gentle and forgiving, so much so that he did not like even wrong-doers to be punished by Allah. The verses I read above are one such example. The “sire”, meaning “elder”, mentioned here is usually considered as his father because the verse uses the word ab, and it is said that Abraham preached to his father who was an idol-worshipper, like his whole community. Maulana Muhammad Ali writes that this person was not his father but some leading elder of the community who could also be called as “my father” by Abraham. Abraham says to him:

“why do you worship something which does not hear, nor see, nor can it help you at all? My sire, to me indeed has come the knowledge which has not come to you.”

Abraham is giving him reasons and arguments, based on knowledge, and trying to convince him as to why idol-worship is futile. The sire tells Abraham to go away or he will drive him away. Abraham agrees to withdraw from him and says:

“Peace be on you! I shall pray my Lord to forgive you. Surely He is ever Kind to me.”

He is essentially saying: You carry on calling on your idols, I will call on my Lord, and “Maybe I shall not remain unblessed in calling upon my Lord”.

The Quran mentions two occasions when Abraham insisted on praying for the forgiveness of such wrong-doers about whom God had decided that they had gone too far in wrong-doing and would be punished. Although God told him not to ask forgiveness for them, yet God says about one of those two occasions that Abraham did this because he was “tender-hearted, forbearing” (9:114). The word for “forbearing” is ḥalīm in Arabic. It means one who is tolerant and puts up with a lot from people with patience.

The second of those occasions relates to the people of the prophet Lot or Lūṭ. He was a prophet at the time of Abraham. God informed Abraham that the people of Lot would be destroyed because of their committing wicked deeds. God says in the Quran: “he (Abraham) began to plead with Us for Lot’s people. Surely Abraham was forbearing, tender-hearted, and one who turned to Allah again and again” (11:74–75). Allah replied to him:

“O Abraham, stop this. Surely the decree of your Lord has gone forth and a punishment must come to them which cannot be averted” (11:76).

On both of these two occasions, Abraham did not rejoice and say: Good, the enemy of God is going to be destroyed. Instead, he pleaded before God for their forgiveness and only stopped when God told him directly that there was no chance left for those people. On a third occasion Abraham’s prayer for the rejectors of truth was this:

“My Lord, surely they have led many people to go wrong. So whoever follows me, he is surely of me; and whoever disobeys me, You surely are Forgiving, Merciful” (14:36).

Those who follow him become his own, just as we as Muslims are in the Umma of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. But as regards those who do not accept him, Abraham prays to Allah for their forgiveness.

The question then is, can a person who is so “tender-hearted” that he repeatedly prays for the forgiveness of those who reject him and reject Allah’s messages, be at the same time so callous and uncaring towards his closest relations as to abandon them in a wilderness with no helpers and to be ready to cut his son’s throat? He could only have done this because he had absolute faith in the promise of Allah that all would be well with them and a great nation would arise from them.

We also find from the Quran that Abraham is always reasoning, arguing and debating. He argued and held debates with his people (21:52–67), with his sire mentioned above (19:42–49), with his king (2:258), and he even argued within himself (6:76–79). To expand on this last point, his people, and indeed all nations in his time, apart from idols also worshipped heavenly bodies that they saw above them, stars, the moon and the sun. The Quran relates the story that one evening Abraham saw a star and thought: Can this be my Lord? But then the star set later on, and he drew the conclusion that something which sets and disappears could not be God. I may point out that stars not only disappear when the night is over but many of them, from any place on earth, can only be seen for six months and are not in the night sky for the next six months. Then he looked at the moon, which of course was much larger than any star, and asked himself: Can this be my Lord? But the moon also set. So he drew the same conclusion about that. Next he saw the sun and this being so big, he asked himself: Can this be my Lord? Is this the greatest? And that too set. The Quran says regarding this episode:

“And thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and that he might have certainty” (6:75).

He obtained certainty that there is only one God through his observation of the world and his reasoning. The Quran also says about this:

“And this was Our argument which We gave to Abraham against his people” (6:83).

He presented arguments to his people to prove the truth of what he was preaching to them.

His people responded that they will remain devoted to their idols because this is what their forefathers had done. Abraham in reply explained to them Who is God and why he worships Him. He said that the Lord of the worlds was the one:

“Who created me, then He shows me the way, and Who gives me to eat and to drink, and when I am sick, He heals me, and Who will cause me to die, then give me life, and Who, I hope, will forgive me my mistakes on the day of Judgment” (26:78–82).

He presents God as the One Who meets human needs. God created humans with the capability to choose between right and wrong and also showed them the right way. Humans need to eat and drink and be healthy, and God provided those means for them. Abraham does not say that God makes a human hungry, thirsty or sick. He says that God brings them relief from these conditions. He also says that human life does not come to a futile end, but that God raises humans to life after death, and he has hope that God, when judging him, will forgive his mistakes. Abraham was one of the greatest prophets of God to appear, and later on he was revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, which is the majority of the world. Such is his greatness that, according to a hadith in Sahih Muslim, when a man addressed the Holy Prophet Muhammad as Yā khair-al-bariyya, “O best of mankind”, the Holy Prophet replied: “That was Abraham” (book 43, hadith 2369a). Yet this great man is conscious of mistakes he may have committed, and he expresses his “hope”, not guarantee, that the Lord of the worlds will forgive him.

After saying this to his people, he adds prayer:

“My Lord, grant me wisdom, and join me with the righteous, and ordain for me a goodly mention in later generations, and make me from among the heirs of the Garden of bliss, and forgive my sire, surely he is in error, and do not disgrace me on the day when they are raised — the day when wealth will not avail, nor sons, except him who comes to Allah with a sound heart” (26:83–89).

Looking at this prayer, we see that what is important is to have wisdom, and be among the righteous, and lead such a life that the later generations mention you in good terms. When later righteous generations mention someone in good terms, that is itself an indication that he has inherited the Garden of the next world. Again, we notice that he is praying for the forgiveness of his community elder who is on the wrong path. And seeing that man on the wrong path, he does not gloat, saying, look he is on the wrong path and I am on the right path. Instead, he prays for himself not to be disgraced before God. As he further says, possessing wealth or having sons who continue your family line do not count in your favour when Allah judges you. What counts is that your heart is sound and fully devoted to God, with no weakness of faith in it which leads away from God. What matters is that your heart was in your religion, not just your body.

So may Allah enable us to tread the same path of rational thinking and forgiveness as that shown by Abraham — ameen.

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