18

HINTING AT THE FUTURE

Now this is not the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Winston Churchill¹

The overture to a musical, such as South Pacific or Phantom of the Opera, contains bits and pieces of songs that are destined to be sung during the full performance. If you are sitting in a dark auditorium, listening to an overture for the very first time in your life, the music will be both tantalizing and mysterious. It will hint at events to come, yet from the overture alone, you will not be able to guess exactly what will happen. Only after the curtain rises and the actors have assumed their roles will the melodic snippets expand into songs and—one by one—reveal their full glory.

By stretching the musical analogy a bit, we can apply it to Abraham. Within the bounds of this analogy, Abraham’s life was a tantalizing overture, full of prophetic hints about various songs that would be sung in the millennia ahead. When the overture ended—when Abraham died—it seemed to be the end of everything, but it was merely a necessary pause. Soon the curtain would rise on the full performance, and the prophetic overtones of His life would develop into complete melodies.

WELLS OF SPARKLING WATER

In addition to themes mentioned in previous chapters, a motif from Abraham’s life that has been repeated in subsequent Revelations is that of the imagery of wells. Abraham was the first Messenger of God recorded as having dug a well. The wells He excavated to physically water His flocks of sheep simultaneously served as symbols of divine blessings and eternal life for His flock of believers. Abraham was also the first Messenger of God described as having had His wells filled in with rubble by neighboring tribes who did not want to drink from them. After Abraham died, Isaac dug the wells again and released fresh water, indicating that the spiritual processes set in motion by Abraham would not be permanently blocked.²

This scenario of releasing fresh water from wells has been repeated in all of the Abrahamic religions. Each Messenger has found that the “wells” of perception opened by previous Revelators have become filled with the “sludge” of misunderstanding, opposition, disobedience, and superstition. After removing the sludge, each of them has provided a fresh source of sparkling water for anyone willing to partake. Moses, for instance, gathered His congregation together near a dry rock and “with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.” Jesus offered “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” For Muḥammad, the symbolism of wells became quite literal when His grandfather presaged Muḥammad’s Revelation by rediscovering the well of ZamZam, whose location had been lost, and clearing away the sand so water could again flow forth. The Báb described the water He was offering in mystical terms: “I give you to drink, by the leave of God, the sovereign Truth, of the crystal-pure waters of His Revelation which are gushing out from the incorruptible Fountain situate upon the Holy Mount.” And Bahá’u’lláh enjoined those who seek knowledge to “Drink your fill from the wellspring of wisdom.”³

MONOTHEISM

By smashing idols and speaking of a God Who was both invisible and indivisible, Abraham opened a new area of spiritual reality for humankind to investigate: monotheism. In spite of Abraham’s foundation, however, when Moses began His ministry, He had to again explain and reinforce the idea of monotheism among people who were still thinking in very literal terms and retained a strong desire to worship solid idols. To get His point across, Moses used concrete idioms, describing God as a consuming fire Who was so jealous that He could be provoked to anger by anyone who dared carve an idol.⁴

More than a thousand years later, Jesus, speaking to people whose worldview was significantly different than that of the tribes who had lived during the time of Moses, was able to expand man’s appreciation of the transcendence of God by portraying Him in ways that were less concrete and more ethereal. He spoke of God as a mystery and explained that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Because Moses had already firmly implanted the concept of justice in Judaism, Jesus was able to spend more time emphasizing God’s love, including the way in which it could be reflected by the human soul: “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” And, as mentioned previously, Jesus also taught the world an incredible lesson about the nature of self-sacrifice.⁵

Muḥammad’s challenge was that of spiritualizing a group of brutal desert tribes who “battled and pillaged mercilessly” and were willing to bury extra baby girls alive in the desert rather than bear the expense of feeding them. So although Muḥammad did speak of God as merciful, compassionate, and forgiving, He—like Moses—had to spend much of His time stressing the sterner aspects of the one Creator. “Whoso is an enemy to God,” said Muḥammad, “shall have God as his enemy.”⁶

Bahá’u’lláh, speaking nearly two thousand years after Jesus and fourteen hundred years after Muḥammad, validated all of the previous images by describing both fear and love as essential qualities of a faithful soul: “Their hearts are illumined with the light of the fear of God, and adorned with the adornment of His love.” And then Bahá’u’lláh added one more perplexing layer to the conundrum that is God by emphasizing His complete transcendence: “To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men.”⁷

THE HOUSE OF GOD

Another theme from Abraham that has blossomed into a full aria is that of enclosing a sacred space where people can congregate to worship the invisible and indivisible God. According to Muḥammad, “The first temple that was founded for mankind, was that in Becca”—the temple erected by Abraham and Ishmael. God commanded them to “Purify my house for those who shall go in procession round it, and those who shall abide there for devotion, and those who shall bow down and prostrate themselves [in prayer].”⁸*

Several special features made Abraham’s temple different than any other religious structure of its time: It was not oriented toward the sky and stars above. It did not contain any idols, nor was it considered to be the dwelling place of a god. Furthermore, its use was not restricted to priests because anyone was allowed to enter it and pray.

By contrast, the enormous stone circles such as Stonehenge and the Ring of Brodgar, which seem to have served a religious purpose, were aimed at providing a view of the sky where divine portents might be observed at certain times of the year. And the jagged ziggurats of Mesopotamia were capped, it is thought, by small shrines at the top that were available to any god who was willing to come down from the sky and make it his home. The solid construction of the ziggurats—several platforms of sun-dried brick, each platform smaller than the one on which it rested—did not allow for the possibility of interior gatherings.

The religious structures of Egypt were not solid inside, like ziggurats, but the few rooms they did contain were not open to the general public. Instead, they served primarily as repositories for sacred objects and as homes for a god or a god’s family. They were also places where priests conducted rites that were thought to provide protection to the pharaoh and his subjects. Ordinary citizens might be allowed into the courtyard of a temple to catch sight of an idol on a festival day, and a few lucky people might be allowed to enter an audience chamber to submit a question to one of the gods, but in general, use of the interior spaces was restricted to priests.⁹

The temple built by Abraham was a lopsided rectangle with the measurement of each of the four sides being somewhere between thirty and forty-nine feet. Abraham placed a football-sized rock, which geologists suggest may be an agate, somewhere inside the room, maybe in a niche in the easternmost wall.¹⁰ The stone fractured into several pieces during a fire following a battle in AD 683, but it was later reassembled, set within a metal frame, and embedded in one of the walls, where it can still be seen. The purpose of the stone isn’t known, but it could have been a transitional object—a means of helping worshippers abandon idols by giving them a marked direction toward which they could bow or kneel in prayer.

Abraham’s temple, originally known simply as House of God, has been refurbished and rebuilt several times, making it impossible to know whether the original structure was of wood or stone, though it is reasonable to suppose that it was constructed of local granite with a wood roof supported by several pillars. A series of renovations during the following centuries changed the sizes of the walls and pushed the ceiling higher, making the structure more like a cube. The name by which the building is currently known—Kaaba or Ka’bah or Caaba—refers to the Arabic word for cube and was applied to the building only after the all the changes in its appearance had been finished.

No matter its name, the Kaaba served several important purposes in the centuries after Abraham’s death. It was a place where God could be worshipped by ordinary people as well as a venue for community gatherings, such as the poetry contests that were popular among the Arabian tribes. The House of God was considered such sacred, neutral territory that even the most bitter of adversaries would suspend their disagreements while in its vicinity, a practice that made Mecca a relatively peaceful city and allowed it to prosper as a center of trade. Now and then, a person fleeing for his life from an enemy would take refuge inside the House of God because no one was allowed to enter it for the purpose of revenge or violence.¹¹

As the renown of the Kaaba spread, pilgrims came to it from places outside of Arabia, including Jews from Canaan. It was even mentioned in an ancient travel guide by Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the first century BC. In his book Bibliotheca Historica, the section on Arabia included these words about Mecca: “‘And a temple has been set up there, which is very holy and exceedingly revered by all Arabians.’”¹²

Following the pattern set by Abraham, synagogues, churches, mosques, and Bahá’í temples are alike in that they are dedicated to the worship of an invisible / indivisible God who does not live inside a specific idol or shrine. The structures are not oriented toward a particular view of the stars, nor is their use limited to a special class of clergy. They are not meant to be admired only from the outside but derive their true purpose from the way they invite believers to come inside and worship together. And, like the original House of God, these sacred spaces have often become important centers of community life because they have hosted functions other than that of worship, such as classes for children, weddings, concerts, and even town meetings.

A SUCCESSION OF MESSENGERS

One of the most mysterious but all-embracing themes sounded within the story of Abraham’s life as laid out in the book of Genesis is that of anticipation of the future. Hints about the roles that will be played by various descendants of Abraham are woven into the story as generously and beautifully as sequins on a tutu. The next several chapters will consider some of the ways in which those glittering hints have been fulfilled by five Messengers of God and will outline their genealogies as well.

* Later on, it became a Muslim tradition that Adam built the first temple and Abraham merely restored it, but this is not corroborated by any of the sacred scriptures.