PProphets
Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham)
The great prophet recognised in common by Judaism, Christianity and Islam; one of the prophets of firm resolve (ulu al-azm) spoken of most often in the Qur'an. The Qur'an presents him as the friend of God (al-Nisa' 4/125) and the father of the believers (al-Hajj 22/78); in literary works he is also called Khalil, Khalil Allah, Khalil al-Rahman . His name occurs sixty-nine times in the Qur'an. The Qur'an does not speak of him in chronological sequence but as occasion arises in various suras: it presents his place in the history of faith, his teaching, his methods of preaching and his character, and gives episodes from his life insofar as they bear on these themes. In the Islamic sources his genealogy is traced through Tarikh (Terah) ibn Nahur to Sam ibn Nuh. In the Qur'an his father's name is given as Azar , and he is stated to have been an idolater (al-An'am 6/74). As the verse "We gave Abraham his right guidance before, and We knew him well" (al-Anbiya' 21/51) indicates, he was on the right path even before his prophethood. In the reasoning recounted in the Qur'an, on seeing a star, the moon and the sun he said of each "This is my Lord", and when they set he said "I love not those that set" and declared "I have turned my face, as a man of pure faith, to Him who created the heavens and the earth" (al-An'am 6/75-79). The source states that one should not conclude from this that he ever truly took the heavenly bodies for gods, even for a moment; it was a method of argument he used to show the emptiness of his people's religious notions. His asking God how He gives life to the dead is likewise explained in the Qur'an, though he believed, by the wish "that my heart may be at rest" (al-Baqara 2/260). When he was sent as a prophet to his people he first called his father to the true religion; his father threatened to drive him away (Maryam 19/42-46). He asked God's forgiveness for his father, but this request was not accepted (al-Tawba 9/114). He invited his people too, but without success. To show the helplessness of the idols they worshipped, on a feast day when the people had gone out of the town he entered the idol house and broke all the idols except the largest; when questioned he said "Perhaps it was this big one of theirs that did it; ask it" . The idolatrous rulers set out to punish him by casting him into the fire; at God's command "O fire, be coolness and safety for Abraham!" the fire did not burn him (al-Anbiya' 21/57-70). Most works of history and exegesis hold that the man who, in the sura al-Baqara (2/258), disputed with him, claimed divinity and was defeated by his proofs was Nimrod , leader of the people who cast him into the fire. According to the Islamic sources he left Nimrod's land with his wife Sara , his nephew Lot and his other companions, stayed for a time first in Harran and then in Jordan, went from there to Egypt, and later returned to the land of Palestine. After they reached the blessed land that had been promised, Lot was charged with going to the people of Lot and parted from him (al-Ankabut 29/28). Being well advanced in years and childless, he asked God for a righteous child, and was given the glad tidings of a forbearing (halim) son (al-Saffat 37/99-101). According to the Qur'an, God's messengers came to him as guests; he offered them a roasted calf, and when they did not eat and he grew uneasy they told him they had come for the people of Lot and gave him the glad tidings of a son; his wife laughed at the news, marvelling that two old people should have a child (Hud 11/69-76). According to the Islamic sources God asked him to take Hagar and Ismail to the place where Mecca stands; in the Qur'an's words he settled some of his offspring by the Sacred House (Ibrahim 14/37). As far as can be understood from the Qur'an, Ismail was his first child and was very small when he was left there. Abraham, who lived in Palestine, was tested by being asked to sacrifice his first child when the boy reached the age of running about; he passed the test, and as a reward his name was made lasting among later generations (al-Saffat 37/101-112). After God showed him the site of the House (al-Hajj 22/26) he raised the foundations of the Ka'ba together with his son Ismail (al-Baqara 2/127), and was charged with proclaiming the pilgrimage among mankind. He prayed that Mecca be a secure city, declared the area sacred, and asked God to send them a prophet from his own offspring (al-Baqara 2/126-129); the source states that this prophet is Muhammad, who descended from them, and regards the hadith "I am the prayer of my father Abraham, the glad tidings of my brother Jesus and the dream of my mother" as pointing to this. In gratitude for this prayer Muslims are enjoined to recite the "Salli" and "Barik" prayers in their ritual prayers. The Qur'an presents him as being of the faith of Noah (al-Saffat 37/83), made a leader (imam) of mankind after God tested him with certain words and he fulfilled them (al-Baqara 2/124), and neither a Jew nor a Christian but an upright Muslim ( hanif ) who knew God as One (Al Imran 3/67). Scrolls were given to him (al-Najm 53/36-37; al-A'la 87/19); Muslim historians report that these were ten scrolls consisting of parables. He was a grave, gentle-natured prophet who had devoted himself to God, very hospitable and wholly truthful; he is called "abu al-adyaf" (father of guests). The hadiths relate that he was of middle height and cheerful countenance, the person who most resembled Muhammad in form and features; that he will be the first prophet to be clothed on the Day of Resurrection; and that during the Mi'raj Muhammad saw him in the seventh (in some reports the sixth) heaven, leaning against the Frequented House (al-Bayt al-Ma'mur). The Qur'an does not state where or how he died. According to the Islamic sources, when the angel of death came to him in the form of a very old man, he offered him hospitality; seeing that the man was too frail to eat, he asked his age, and on learning that he was only two years older than himself he asked that his own soul be taken so as not to fall into that state. His body was buried in Hebron beside Sara; the place is today called al-Khalil. His Circle of Influence — Among the prophets of the past the Qur'an gives lasting value especially to his teaching: the Prophet of Islam and his community are commanded to follow "the religion of Abraham, the hanif" (Al Imran 3/95; al-Nahl 16/123), the Maqam Ibrahim in the sanctuary of the Ka'ba is made a place of prayer (al-Baqara 2/125), and it is stated that it was he who long ago named the true believers Muslims (al-Hajj 22/78). He has also been treated in various genres of Turkish literature. The first known work written about him is the masnavi Halilname which Abdülvasi Çelebi presented to Sultan Mehmed I in 817 (1414). In the work of Rabghuzi, author of the first stories of the prophets composed in Turkish, he is one of the three prophets, after Muhammad, about whom the most is said. At the end of some copies of Süleyman Çelebi's Mawlid there is a verse tale entitled Dasitan-ı İbrahim aleyhi's-selam ; Rumi returns often to his story in the Masnavi , and Fuzuli devotes a chapter to him in Hadiqat al-su'ada . His struggle for divine unity, his submission, his table ( Halil İbrahim sofrası ), his bounty ( Halil İbrahim bereketi ) and his hospitality found wide place in religious, moral, Sufi and literary works; in divan poetry the lover is likened to him for burning in the fire of love and not shrinking from sacrificing his life for the beloved. His Tomb and Complex — Al-Khalil (Hebron) lies in the West Bank, 32 km south-west of Jerusalem; the town's present name is a shortening of Khalil al-Rahman, "the friend of God". Because the graves of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and some of their wives are here, the town is held sacred in the three revealed religions; among Muslims it is the most esteemed city after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. The cave in which the graves lie (Machpelah) and its surroundings were enclosed with walls and made a shrine in the time of the Jewish king Herod, and in the course of time the place took its present form, the Haram al-Khalil (al-Haram al-Ibrahimi, Mosque of Abraham). The Umayyads gave the shrine and the graves in the cave an Islamic form, and the Abbasids turned it into a mosque. When the Crusaders took the town (1099) they built a church in place of the mosque; Saladin, who recovered the town in 1187, converted the church into a mosque and had the wooden minbar from Ascalon brought here. The Mamluk sultan Baybars I built a masjid in front of the graves in 1267; Sultan Qalawun had the interior redecorated in 1286 and covered the graves with domes, turning each into a mausoleum. In 1517 the town came under Ottoman rule; Selim I visited the prophets' graves and had some repairs made, and the sanctuary was thoroughly restored by Ahmed I in 1612 and by Abdülhamid II in 1896. The holy precinct within the walls has two parts: the old shrine containing the mausoleums of Abraham, Jacob and their wives, and the church, converted into a mosque by Saladin, which houses the mausoleums of Isaac and his wife. Of the mausoleums in the courtyard the one on the right belongs to Abraham and the one on the left to Sara; the prophets' mausoleums are octagonal, those of their wives hexagonal. In front of the qibla and north walls of the mosque are two shafts with steps leading down to the cave where the actual graves lie. Visitors were regarded as guests of God and were served bread and soup called al-simat al-Khalili at the "table of Abraham the Friend"; Evliya Çelebi speaks of this "soup of al-Khalil" and relates the tradition that the fire in the kitchen had never gone out since Abraham's time. From 1967 the town came under Israeli occupation; in 1980 the administration of the Haram al-Khalil was taken from the Muslims and placed under the Kiryat Arba administration, and on 25 February 1994 sixty-seven people died when fire was opened on the congregation at the dawn prayer and in the events that followed. After the 1997 agreement the sector containing the Haram al-Khalil remained under Israeli control.
