Abraham: One God Three Wives Five Religions

In the time of Abraham, lineage almost always determined destiny because the world of humans was a world of distinct tribes made up of people who were fairly closely related. Being born into Tribe A rather than Tribe B determined who was friend and who was foe. It generally controlled how you would make a living, where you would reside, and what you would eat. It affected your name, the language you spoke, the music you played, whom you married, how your children would be educated (or not), and the way in which you would be buried. And even if a tribe couldn’t necessarily control the allegiances and yearnings of your inner soul, it did dictate which gods you were expected to worship.

Refusing to accept the norms of the tribe could lead to banishment, and being exiled from the tribe into which you were born was akin to being sentenced to death because it was not likely that another tribe would want to adopt you. When Abraham was exiled for opposing the beliefs of the prevailing tribe in Ur, and then banished a second time for not accepting the gods of His father’s tribe, those who exiled Him hoped He would perish. What happened in Abraham’s case, however, was that punishment turned into blessing because it became a pathway to a revolution in religious thought.

Through the process of moving to Canaan and starting a new tribe, Abraham was able to use the strength of tribal allegiance to create a religious culture quite different from that of other tribal groups. The followers of this new tribal faith took the idea of a single omnipotent God seriously, relinquished the worship of idols, and marked the uniqueness of their new beliefs through the ritual of circumcising baby boys. They celebrated links to their past by remembering that other spiritual giants, such as Enoch and Noah, were among their spiritual ancestors. And, as a bonus, they reveled in God’s promise that Abraham’s legacy—religious as well as genetic—would continue to be as important to the world in the future as it had in the past.

For about two thousand years, the monotheism of Abraham (and Moses) continued to be primarily an inherited religion belonging to a few special tribes. Within this protected environment, it was able to grow into a stable entity whose spiritual integrity and civilizing influence was noticed and appreciated by surrounding cultures. According to the Bahá’í writings, Hippocrates and Socrates were among the great thinkers who traveled from Greece to Canaan. While there, they “acquired wisdom from the Jewish prophets, studying the basis of ethics and morality, returning to their country with contributions which have made Greece famous.”²

But, wonderful as it was that visitors from other regions could come to Israel and borrow ideas from monotheistic Judaism, it was difficult for these seekers of truth to be accepted by Judaism as legitimate followers of Moses and Abraham. One option for change, the easiest, was to marry a Jew, which guaranteed that the children of the marriage would be considered Jews by birthright. The other option involved two steps: The potential convert had to pledge allegiance not just to God, but also to the Jewish people. But, even after taking the pledge, the new convert wouldn’t be considered a real Jew. Instead, he would have a sort of resident alien status and would be referred to as a righteous proselyte.³ What these restrictions meant in practical terms was that monotheistic Judaism continued to be a religion in which membership was dictated by birth rather being a matter of choice, and the faith remained confined to a small area of the world.

In order for the monotheism of Abraham to spread to other countries, a new modus operandi was needed, something God supplied through the Revelation of Abraham’s descendant, Jesus. Jesus did what had previously been unimaginable: He changed the definition of what a tribe could be by creating a spiritual clan in which DNA was irrelevant. Each member of the Christian tribe was linked to all of the other members—and to God—by mystical bonds of belief that were considered as powerful as ties of blood: “And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”⁴

Jesus’ revolutionary explanation that the spiritual connection between a person’s heart and God was not necessarily tied to one’s ancestors and didn’t require loyalty to any particular familial tribe was not met with overwhelming enthusiasm, and He was crucified as a troublemaker. After Jesus’ death, His brokenhearted disciples were absolutely astonished to find that their faith had not died with Him. Heartened by the realization that the new tribe—the tribe of Christianity—could be resurrected, could survive and flourish without the physical presence of its Founder, and without any genetic legacy from Him, the disciples set about the task of taking this expanded understanding of monotheism beyond the confines of Israel and into the wider world.

Muḥammad continued what Jesus had begun by creating a third monotheistic Abrahamic tribe—Islam—and opening its doors to anyone who wished to enter. In addition, He confirmed the legitimacy of several other religions, including those formed solely by belief as well as those passed from generation to generation by blood ties. He mentioned a few of these religions by name, including Judaism and Christianity. The rest He covered by saying: “whoever submits his whole self to Allah and is a doer of good, he will get his reward with his Lord; on such shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”⁵

Although there have been times and places when the first three religions of Abraham—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—managed to reflect the spirit of love and respect shown by the Messengers of God who revealed them, the general tenor of the interactions among the three tribes for the last millenium has been one of fractiousness.

Like contentious siblings, various members of these three Abrahamic tribes have thought their own inheritance—spiritual or physical—to be better than that of the others, and each has yearned to believe itself the most beloved of God. Reading current newspapers, one is sometimes driven to despair by the feeling that such pride and hostility will continue forever. On the other hand, the story of Abraham contains a shimmering dewdrop of hope because it foreshadows a time when enmity will fade and a movement toward reconciliation will begin.

The prophetic foreshadowing of this religious reconciliation took place after the death of Abraham, when the two oldest sons, who had long been separated—Ishmael in Mecca and Isaac in Canaan—reunited. The two sons can be understood as representing the five Abrahamic faiths: Islam and the Bábí Faith through Ishmael; Judaism, Christianity, and the Bahá’í Faith through Isaac.

When Isaac and Ishmael met, they ignored their past differences and concentrated, instead, on doing something positive: they buried their father with love and dignity. This act of solidarity transmitted the clear and powerful message that their common descent from Abraham was more important than the fact that they had different mothers. A parallel process began in the religious communities of the world just over a century ago, and it has been picking up speed every since. The process is fraught with uncertainties, upheavals, and unpleasantness, but it is also dotted with delight, discovery, and determination—and it is happening everywhere.

A willingness to investigate and honor the truths of other religions has, of course, never been entirely absent from human history. One early example of honoring a different belief system lies in the way King Cyrus freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. But in spite of individual examples like Cyrus, organized methods of conducting amicable dialogues and widespread attempts at fostering interfaith friendships are a recent phenomenon.

The birth of international interfaith dialogue is generally agreed to have occurred in 1893 when the first World’s Parliament of Religions was held at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Parliament, which lasted sixteen days, was attended by people from many different countries, and it featured presentations on numerous religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as Zoroastrianism and Shintoism. The Bahá’í Faith was introduced, Mary Baker Eddy gave a lecture on Christian Science, Swami Vivekananda spoke about Hinduism, and there was much, much more.⁶

In a closing statement, Mr. C. C. Bonney, who had served as President of all of the Congresses held during the Parliament, summed up the aspirations of the group by saying:

The wonderful success of this first actual Congress of the Religions of the world is the realization of a conviction which has held my heart for many years. I became acquainted with the great religious systems of the world in my youth, and have enjoyed an intimate association with leaders of many churches during my mature years. I was thus led to believe that if the great religious truths could be brought into relations of friendly intercourse, many points of sympathy and union would be found, and the coming unity of mankind in the love of God and the service of many be greatly facilitated and advanced.

What many men deemed impossible God has finally wrought. The religions of the world have actually met in a great and imposing assembly; they have conferred together on the vital questions of life and immortality in a frank and friendly spirit, and now they part in peace with many warm expressions of mutual affection and respect …

The influence which this Congress of the Religions of the World will exert on the peace and prosperity of the world is beyond the power of human language to describe. For this influence, borne by those who have attended the sessions of the Parliament of Religions to all parts of the earth, will affect in some important degree all races of men, all forms of religions, and even all governments and social institutions.⁷

The Parliament did not have any kind of follow-up meeting or forum, and in the first few decades after the Columbian Exposition, when the world was overtaken by World Wars I and II, it was all too easy to assume that the event had achieved nothing. But now, more than a hundred years later, the influence of the Parliament is evident in the astounding number of organizations that have arisen to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding. Some, like the United Religions Initiative, and the annual World Interfaith Harmony Week promoted by the United Nations, are global; others, such as the Interfaith Network for the United Kingdom, the North American Interfaith Network, and the Ethiopian Interfaith Peace-building Initiative, cover anything from a single country to a whole continent. And a few are devoted specifically to two or more of the Abrahamic faiths, including the Abrahamic Interfaith Dialogue Society of Istanbul.

Thousands of local interfaith initiatives have given birth to youth groups, books clubs, discussion groups, festivals, forums, and city-wide councils, such as the Kharagpur Peace Circle in West Bengal, the Interfaith Forum in Greenville, South Carolina, and the NCRR (Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress) coalition in Tokyo that sponsors an interfaith dinner during Ramadan. Interfaith calendars have been created, interfaith bumper stickers can be spotted on passing cars, and the Internet is bursting with sites offering the sacred texts of just about any nameable religion, as well as questions and answers about various religious customs, lists of holy days, overviews of different faiths, blogs on what daily life is like for individual believers, and columns of advice on how to form and conduct an interfaith group of one’s own.

What’s more, the Parliament of Religions has been revived. A centenary meeting was held in Chicago in 1993, and it has been followed by a series of gatherings spaced five years apart. Each meeting has been in a different venue, ranging from Cape Town to Barcelona to Mexico City to Melbourne, and each one has drawn thousands of attendees.

Wherever and whenever these interfaith events take place, one can symbolically watch Isaac happily thumping Ishmael on the shoulder or Hagar hugging Sarah and Keturah. And, based on the best models of how DNA has been passed around the world in the last forty centuries, one can perceive a trace of Abraham in each and every face.