Once a year, Muslims commemorate Abraham's deep, wondrous love for God, shown in his willingness to obediently sacrifice his own son. Every day of the year, true believers in Jesus remember God's deep, magnificent love for people, shown in His sacrificial Love through His own son Jesus Christ - the Word and Spirit of God. He did this to prove once for all His eternal love for us! He desires that we should not perish but through faith receive His gift of eternal life by accepting Jesus. He is our Savior and assurance (Matthew 20:28; John 3:16; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Timothy 2:4; 1 John 4.14).
October 4, 2014 was this year’s date of the festival of Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice. Celebrated by Muslims with great feeling, Eid al-Adha focuses on the test that God gave to Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his son. While Genesis 22 of the Bible states that Isaac was this son, Muslim exegetes claim it was Ishmael. Several early Muslims however believed it was Isaac and not Ishmael. (Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 923), Tafsir al-Tabari, vol. 10, pp. 510-517, Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah, 1999)