The Birthplace of the Father of Monotheism
According to the Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an, he was born in a place called Ur of the Chaldees. His father, Terah, was a manufacturer of idols, of gods. Apparently, this did not sit well with his son…
He was born under the shadow of something called the Ziggurat at Ur. This place was excavated once but that was almost 80 years ago. Back in the 1920s and 30s, a man named Sir Charles Wooley came from the British Museum along with some Americans from the University of Pennsylvania to better understand this place. And what they found shocked the world. One of the things they found was an area that appeared to correspond directly to the spot where this man was born. Since that time, it has been surrounded by war and isolated from the world.
The Man? Abraham. The place? Iraq.
But what was it about this man, this son of an idol maker? How is it that this man on a windswept plain would become known worldwide as the father of three great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam? And how did this transformation take place? And maybe as significant, why is Abraham so important to these three religions today?
Is there something about this one man who could build a bridge between these great peoples that have been in conflict on and off for thousands of years? Could Abraham be the answer? In a world that seems to be overwhelmed with conflict, these questions are not just relevant but critically important today.
I decided to find out. But there were some basic questions I had to answer.
Where was Ur? Could I get to it? Could I prove that Abraham even existed? What significance does this place have to Christians, Jews and Muslims? Is there something more we could learn from standing in the place where Abraham once stood? What significance does this man have to these three great religions today?
Little did I know that because of a man who lived some 4000 years ago, I would end up in Baghdad under constant threat of attack. Or that I would be walking the grounds of the British Museum in London looking for clues of his existence. Or that I would have long conversations with a rabbi, Imam and Christian theologians about the nature of the world. Or of the close connection of Abraham to Jesus for Christians. Or the fact that Abraham was indirectly responsible for the founding of Mecca, according to Muslims. Or even how historians and archaeologists see this issue.
The deeper I got into the story, the history and even the faith that surrounds this figure, the more I realized that talking to those about him was not enough.
Join me on my search as I cross the world and end up in the middle of a war zone.
Original Music by Cassandra E. Mulcahy
