by another woman. How, then, could she endure the sacrifice of her own son while the son of her co-wife remained? And how could Allah command Abraham to sacrifice his son (1) when the boy’s mother had been given glad tidings of him and of his son [Jacob] (2)? Moreover, (3) the sacrifice took place in Mecca. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—saw the ram’s two horns in the Sacred House and said to its custodian:
“I saw the ram’s two horns inside the Kaaba, so cover them (4), for there should be nothing in the Kaaba that distracts a worshipper.” (5)
Abraham and Ishmael were the ones who built the Kaaba, as the Quran explicitly states, whereas Isaac (6) was in the Levant. The purpose of the command to sacrifice was that no love for anyone other than Allah Most High should remain in Abraham’s heart. This applies when he has only one son; once he has two sons, the intended purpose would not
(1) W reads: “Abraham to sacrifice him.”
(2) “And of his son’s son, Jacob”: thus in M. N, R, and Y read: “and of his son’s son”; H and B read: “and of his son”; the phrase “and of his son’s son” is absent from W.
(3) H and B read: “also”; the word is absent from W.
(4) H, Y, and B read: *fa-khammarahā* (“so he covered it”). A marginal note in R reads: “that is, he covered them both.”
(5) The hadith is found in *Sunan Abī Dāwūd*, 2:289–290 (Book of Pilgrimage Rites, chapter “On Entering the Kaaba”). Its wording is:
“Ibn al-Sarh, Sa'īd ibn Mansūr, and Musaddad narrated to us. They said: Sufyān narrated to us, from Mansūr al-Hajabī, who said: My maternal uncle narrated to me, from my mother, Safiyya bint Shayba, who said: I heard al-Aslamiyya say: I asked Uthmān, ‘What did the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—say to you when he summoned you?’ He replied: ‘He said, “I forgot to instruct you to cover the two horns, for there should be nothing in the House that distracts a worshipper.”’”
Ibn al-Sarh’s version reads: “My maternal uncle, Musāfi' ibn Shayba.”
The annotation on hadith no. 2030 states: “There is disagreement over this hadith’s chain of transmission. It has been narrated as Abū Dāwūd reports it. It has also been narrated from Mansūr, from his maternal uncle Musāfi', from Safiyya bint Shayba, from a woman of Banū Sulaym. A further version has Mansūr narrate from his maternal uncle, from a woman of Banū Sulaym, without mentioning his mother.”
The hadith is also found—with different wording—in *al-Musnad* (al-Halabī ed.), 4:68 and 5:380. Al-Suyūtī cited it in *al-Jāmi' al-Kabīr*, 1:316, saying: “Hm (Ahmad), D (al-Diyā al-Maqdisī in *al-Jinān*), and Q (al-Bayhaqī in *al-Sunan*), from a woman of Banū Sulaym, from Uthmān ibn Talha.”
(6) N and M read: “and Abraham”; this is an error.