educate yourself about your own religion

Submitted by tw (United States), Sep 9, 2010 at 19:18

Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions" because of the progenitor role that Abraham plays in their holy books. In both the Jewish tradition and the Quran, he is referred to as "our Father". Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider him father of the people of Israel. For Jews and Christians this is through his son Isaac, by his wife Sarah; for Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael, born to him by Sarah's handmaiden, Hagar. Abraham was the tenth generation from Noah and the twentieth from Adam He was originally named Abram, and his father's name was Terah; he had two brothers, Nahor and Haran, wife was Sarah, and he was the uncle of Lot. He was sent by God from his home in Haran to take possession of the land of Canaan. In Canaan, Abraham entered into a covenant with God: in exchange for recognition of Yahweh as his God, Abraham would be blessed with innumerable progeny and the land would belong to his descendants. The basic premise common to all these religions dates back to Abraham and his recognition of Yahweh as the one true God. If you claim Allah and God are not the same, then you are ignorant of your religion and its history.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".