Islam and the Thanatoethics of Sacrifice

Abstract

The Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) once said that whoever is capable of performing qurbani (Muslim charitable giving) but does not should not come close to my Eidgah (a place of offering Eid prayers) (Khattab and Khattab 2123). The primary objective of qurbani should be to achieve attainment that is intended to satisfy and get nearer to Allah in the way He likes. Sacrifice in Islam, in a circuitous logic, underlies the act of submission of one’s will to Him, the act of spending one’s material possessions on the path of the Supreme, an act of true giving. We would begin with the question: Is the moment of infinite giving, the transcendent offering, in a way, self-preserving? This paper shall attempt to understand how the theo-ontological idea of “sacrifice” operates in Islamic philosophy and how a deeper understanding of the gesture of qurbani might help us reconfigure the major representational elements surrounding Islamic culture and ethos in the post-9/11 scenario. Taking a cue from Derrida’s understanding of ethical “sacrifice,” this article shall try to understand how the figural gesture of sacrifice in Islam vis-à-vis Abrahamic ethics is fundamental to the understanding of qurbani in the post-9/11 xenophobic climate that has reduced the idea to a mere signifier of fundamentalism and cultural monism.