One day, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son on one of the mountains that he would tell him. When he came to the place of sacrifice, his son asked him where the lamb was for the sacrifice. Abraham answered him that God would himself provide the lamb. Then he bound his son, and put him on the altar over the wood. As he stretched out his hand to sacrifice it, an angel of the Lord called him from the heavens, telling him to do no harm to the child.
Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw behind him a ram caught in a bush by its horns. Abraham took the ram, and offered it unto the LORD for his son. God had provided himself with a substitute in place of his son who was to die. Instead of his son dying, it was the ram.
This act foreshadows the death of Jesus. God sent him as a substitute to take the place of the condemned. Therefore, when Jesus came to him, John the Baptist (يحيى) appointed him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (The Bible, 1 John 1:29)
It is strange that in Islam the Feast celebrates this incident, yet the central meaning is completely overlooked. The ram was sacrificed instead of the son. The young man lived, the ram died. It was a prefiguring of what the Messiah would do when He came to die in the place of, and on behalf of guilty sinners.
A summary of that story follows:
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