• giving up something deserves to be called a sacrifice only when we love and value it. Hence, it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between the concrete and the abstract. In the final analysis, every sacrifice is a sacrifice of our love or value. When we give away money, or life, or a familial tie for the sake of Allah, what we realty give up, and that makes it a sacrifice, is our love for money, life or a relative, not the object itself.
• it is more difficult and more necessary to sacrifice abstract things rather than the concrete.
• we can give up something we love and to which we attach value only for something we love more and to which we attach greater value.

Familial Love

Familial love is the strongest and the most predominant relationship that we have in this world. From childhood till death, love for parents and children, for husbands and wives, for brothers and sisters, even for other relations, remains at the centre of our lives, it dominates all our concerns. We usually live and work and acquire worldly possessions for the sake of love and responsibility to them.
It is quite normal for us to consider its claim upon our heart and mind, upon our attention and loyalty, upon our time and wealth as prior to every other claim. The familial bonds of affection bind us to themselves as no other bonds do. So often we hear someone saying 'my family has the first claim upon me' or someone taking pride in being 'totally devoted and loyal to his or her family'.
And for good reason. Family is the oldest and most important human institution. It is the bedrock of all civilization and culture that man has built up. Without such deep and pervasive love and such overriding loyalty it would never succeed in fulfilling the role of transmitting civilizational values, norms and mores, or making them secure and stable. Without family man, as man, will perish.
Why then, should you be required to sacrifice familial love in the way of Allah? For obvious reasons.
Firstly, you cannot bring your own self wholly under Allah unless His claim upon your life, love and loyalty becomes the most urgent and important. Hence familial love must be subordinated to God. Otherwise it is likely to force or tempt a believer to behave in a manner contrary to the demands of God.
Secondly, family is always the strongest bastion wherein lie entrenched the established values, beliefs, customs and way of life. Becoming Muslim means you begin to change yourselves and your society. You begin to challenge and overthrow the established way of life. That the first resistance to change and rebellion against the ways of forefathers should be offered within the precincts of family love is quite natural.
Thirdly, you commit yourselves to undertake Jihad with all that you possess. Its claim upon everything you have must override every other claim, including the claim of family love. Nothing should deflect you from the path of Jihad. Family love, even if it is not an impediment, you may have to sacrifice in many ways in order to fulfil your duty.
The Qur'an therefore tells us:
And know that your wealth and your children are but a trial, and that with God is a tremendous reward (al-Anfal 8:28).
And confronts us with a profound, fundamental question: Whom do you love more? Allah or . . . ?
Say: If your fathers and your sons and your brothers and your spouses and your clan and your possessions that you have acquired and the commerce that you fear may slacken, and the dwellings you love - if these are dearer to you than God and His Messenger and to struggle in His way, then wait till God brings (the fulfilment of) His Command; God guides not the rebellious people (al-Tawbah 9:24).
The sacrifice of familial love may take various shapes depending on how it stands in the way of obeying Allah and striving to seek His pleasure. In the first instance, familial love demands obedience to parents, to elders, to the ways of forefathers or customs and society. Such obedience, if contrary to the demands of obedience to Allah, you must give up. You must abide by your reason, your conscience, your faith, the guidance you have received from God.
And when it is said to them, 'Follow what God has sent down', they say 'No, but we will follow only that which we found our forefathers doing.' Why, even if their forefathers did not use their reason and if they were not guided? (al-Baqarah 2:170).
We have enjoined upon man goodness towards his parents, yet (even so) should they endeavour with you to make you associate with that whereof you have no knowledge, then do not obey them . . . (al-Ankabut 29:8).
Further, those whom you love may simply refuse to believe in what you believe. Or, they may embark upon open hostility to Allah and His cause. Such hostile relatives may strive to suppress the voice of truth, mock and ridicule you, persecute you, drive you away from your homes, eliminate you.
You should sacrifice all feelings and ties of love with such inimical and hostile family members. Love for Allah and love for His enemies cannot go together. Only by offering the maximum sacrifice of totally renunciating love for them can you have faith engraved on your heart, be counted among the 'Party of God' (Hizb-Allah), receive the rewards of Paradise and His good pleasure.
You shall not find any people who [truly] believe in God and the Last Day and who [at the same time] are loving anyone who opposes God and His Messenger - even though they were their fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their clan. Those - He has engraved faith upon their hearts, and He has strengthened them with inspiration from Himself; and He shall admit them into gardens through which running waters flow, therein to dwell forever. God is well pleased with them; and they are well-pleased with Him. They are God's party . . . (al-Mujadalah 58:22).
Like Ibrahim, that paragon of sacrifice in the way of Allah: First, he had to repudiate his father and even forgo his desire to seek Allah's forgiveness for him. Later, he had to demonstrate his willingness to sacrifice his son.
And Ibrahim's prayer that his father be forgiven was but due to a promise he had made to him, but when it became clear to him that he was an enemy of God, he disavowed him; Ibrahim was most tender-hearted, most clement (al-Tawbah 9:114).
Or, like Nuh: His heart cried out for his son who was drowned in front of his eyes: "O my Lord, my son was of my family, and Your promise is surely true?" But, once told that 'he was not of your family, it was a deed not righteous', he willingly agreed not even to make a plea in this regard (Hud 11:45-6).
Or, like Lot: He forsook his wife because her sympathies lay with the people who refused to heed his call to surrender to Allah alone.
Or, like the Companions of the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him: Fathers were arrayed against sons, and sons against fathers,even on battlegrounds, but flinch they did not.
Those who simply refuse to believe but are not actively hostile require a different sort of sacrifice. You should give up your friendship with them, but treat them with kindness and justice. Snapping all ties of love is an ultimate act, but the plunge has to be taken once only. Continually to live with relatives who disagree with you or dislike your ways and make no secret of it - may be more difficult, even greater sacrifice. For while your activities and beliefs may be disparaged, hurting you deeply, you are still to treat them with compassion.
Obey them not [your parents who strive to make you indulge in shirk]; but keep them company in this world with kindness (Luqman 31:15).
Not always will your family members be opposed or indifferent to your life-mission; they may be sympathetic. Even so demands made by their love may be in conflict with or different from the demands placed upon you by Allah. In situations like this, do not remain unmindful of the fact that love for even those who are good Muslims may some times tempt you away from the path of your love for Allah Hence the need for sacrifice may still be there.
Often you will be under subtle pressures of various sorts. Resisting them will require continuing sacrifices in man ways. Choices, in all cases,may not be that simple and obvious. Sometimes their dislike and disapproval will be made plain to you, explicitly or implicitly; you will have to disregard them. Sometimes pleas and demands will be made in the name of love, rights, or authority, all finding sanction in Islam; you will have to resist them in a proper manner. Wives and children will ask to be loved and cared for; you will have to strike a balance.
You will, then, have to subdue to your commitment to Allah your desire to please them, not to hurt them, not to disappoint them, not to fail their expectations. Or, you will have to forgo their support and approval, your need for warmth and affection. You will have to make complex choices as to the points beyond which your obligation to serve, to discharge your duties, to obey, will have to be abandoned, if they become an impediment in your way to Allah.

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