Samah Salaime :Isaac or Ishmael
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haaretz.com
Millions
of Muslims around the world are celebrating Id al-Adha, the feast of
the sacrifice, or “the great feast” as it is popularly known. The
holiday revolved around a story that is a matter of great dispute
between Jews and Muslims — as if we lack things to argue over. The story
of the binding of Isaac, in the Jewish version, and the sacrifice of
Ishmael, in the Muslim one, is that of a devout, and acclaimed, man who
was in fact a Bedouin polygamist who managed to slip the grasp of
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.
Ibrahim
(Abraham), the father of the Muslims, who is praised in prayer five
times a day, was married to Sarah, who was infertile. The prophet, who
in his leisure time was a regular guy, made the mistake of his life — as
so many men of a certain age do — and took a mistress. Sarah “agreed,”
as it were, to remain in a polygamous relationship. It’s not clear which
of the women was listed as Abraham’s wife in the population registry of
the Interior Ministry, and who was his common-law wife for the purposes
of the National Insurance Institute, but Hagar brought Ishmael into the
world without the aid of fertility treatments.
From
then on, the relationship between the two women deteriorated. It’s
clear from the story that even back then, a woman’s body and womb were a
battlefield over which men fought by means of their fearsome seed. It
turns out that in the name of religion, men can do whatever they want —
as long as responsibility can be pinned on God, or on existential or
demographic anxiety à la Avigdor Lieberman. The main thing is not to
accept responsibility for one’s own lack of self-control.
In
any event, to achieve a balance of power between the women, God asked
Abraham to “visit” Sarah, telling him that she would become pregnant.
And although both doubted the ability of this postmenopausal woman to
become pregnant, Abraham — the man — passed God’s exhausting tests of
faith, while Sarah, as could be expected from a ditzy woman, failed the
test and remained a skeptic (or in free translation, a realist).
Isaac
was born, but anyone who imagined that Abraham would be able to enjoy
some peace and quiet in his home was mistaken. Sarah became increasingly
jealous of Hagar — a slave or, according to the original story, an asylum seeker
from Egypt, who accumulated power and sought to arrange legal residency
for her son. Abraham, having failed to achieve domestic harmony — and
in the absence of a detention facility like Holot on one hand or the
possibility of petitioning the High Court of Justice against the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael on the other hand — cast them out into the desert, to die of thirst.
The
big question — which of the precious sons was supposed to have been
slaughtered instead of the ram remains unanswered to this day. What is
clear is that in both stories, the two sons are from the same father,
who intended to put them to death, and that as a result they are only
window dressing for the entire saga, in both versions. I am happy that
God rescued the father from his agony and left us the holiday with the
sheep.
In
fact, that’s one of the reasons why the Palestinians insist that the
dispute with Israel is national and not religious, and that Christians,
Muslims, Jews, Druze and others always lived together in this land and
there’s room for everyone. And it’s clear from both stories, both
versions, that Abraham did not want to, and in the end did not,
slaughter either of his sons. So there must be another way, mustn’t
there?
Samah Salaime is a social worker, a feminist activist and a blogger.
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