Thereupon a call came from Allah: “O Abraham, you have fulfilled the vision” (al-Ṣāffāt 37:104–105)—that is, the aim of your trial has been achieved: your obedience, your eagerness to carry out your Lord’s command, and your readiness to offer your son as a sacrifice, just as you once offered your own body to the flames and keep your wealth ever at the disposal of guests.

For this reason the Exalted said: “Indeed, this was the manifest trial” (al-Ṣāffāt 37:106), meaning the clear and evident test.

His words, “and We ransomed him with a tremendous sacrifice” (al-Ṣāffāt 37:107), mean that We provided, in place of his son’s slaughter, whatever Allah Most High facilitated as a substitute.

The view most widely held is that it was a white, large-eyed (1), horned (2) ram that Abraham saw tethered to a samurah tree (3) on Mount Thabīr (4).

Al-Thawrī narrated—through ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Khuthaym, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that it was “a ram that had grazed in Paradise for seventy autumns” (5).

Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: “It grazed in Paradise until Mount Thabīr split open for it, and it was covered in red wool” (7).

Ibn ʿAbbās also related that “a large-eyed, horned ram descended upon him from Thabīr, bleating, and he slaughtered it; it is the very ram that the son of Adam once offered and that was accepted from him.” This was reported by Ibn Abī Ḥātim (8).

Mujāhid (9) said he slaughtered it at Minā, whereas ʿUbayd ibn ʿUmayr (10) held that it was slaughtered at the Maqām.

As for the report attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās that it was a mountain goat, and the report from al-Ḥasan that it was an ibex named Jarīr, neither is reliably established from them. Most of what is cited here comes from Israelite lore, while the Qur’an alone suffices to inform us of this momentous affair and extraordinary trial, and that he was ransomed with a mighty sacrifice. A Prophetic ḥadīth also states that it was a ram.

Imām Aḥmad (11) said: Sufyān narrated to us; Manṣūr narrated to us, from his maternal uncle Nāfiʿ, from Ṣafiyyah bint Shaybah, who said: A woman from Banū Sulaym—who had delivered most of the members of our household—told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sent word to ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥah