In the Bosom of Abraham

Recently I discovered the bosom of Abraham. I stumbled across this comfortable place during the preparatory research for a talk I had been invited to give at the Shaykh Jamaluddeen Centre in Durban. The conference theme was 'The Universality of Abrahamic Faiths', and I had chosen to take a comparative look at the divine revelations of the three Abrahamic faiths - i.e. the Torah, the Christian Bible and the Qur'an - but I soon found myself in trouble and troubled. In trouble because this was a vast subject beyond my experience - how could I ever do it justice in the time allotted -  and troubled because the further I looked into these scriptures, the more differences I began to find - and surely the theme begged the evocation of convergence, not divergence. Furthermore, Shaykh Jamaluddeen, in whose honour the conference had been called, had himself epitomized a religious evolution through the three faiths. Born of a Jewish mother, he had attended catholic seminary, excelled in his studies, became a papal envoy to South Africa, where  he embraced Islam, and to where he eventually returned to become an 'Alim. Above all people, he seemed to have rested in the Bosom of Abraham and found peace there. I too needed to find that peace.

Romanesque capital from the priory of Aspach Alsace, ca 1000-1200 CE

Represented in Judao-Christian art, music, architecture and religious mythology as symbolic of being close to God or in favour with God, this potent image encapsulated for me an overriding truth of spirituality that comforted me and gave me considerable solace. Going beyond these three religions, the thread of universality and tawhid could be pulled out of the dense historical weave by returning to the bosom of Abraham and the way of the hanif - upright, worshiping the One God. After all, this is the core, the nub of these religions: One god, one Source of all creational manifestation, One Power, Omniscient, Omnipresent, beyond our capacity to conceive of, worthy of adoration and worship.

c. 1700  Eastern Orthodox icon where Christ is surrounded

 by angels and saints, at bottom is Paradise with Bosom of Abraham

Christians have long 'rocked' their souls in the bosom of Abraham thanks to Elvis Presley, Peter, Paul & Mary and the worshipful world of Gospel song. For me, embedded within the Islamic tradition, this exposure was a new discovery! The closest I have come to singing his remembrance is in the invocation of blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad (S) and Hazrat Ibrahim (A.S) (Durood Ibrahimi). As with many such symbols, its origins are layered over in several possibilities. Ancient Judaic lore has it that guests would traditionally recline practically in the bosom of their host while eating. As the arch patriarch Abraham's progeny and followers are symbolically gathered there. In Luke 16:22-23 there is the story of how the angels carried Lazarus to rest in the bosom of Abraham while a rich man who dies is not so welcomed. Lazarus is therefore accepted as one of the favoured, for Abraham himself and his progeny have been favoured by God (Genesis 12:7, 13:15 etc) and promised the land of Canaan. The biblical stories regularly highlight Abraham's concern with continuity of his line and the promise of land for him and his people. Indeed, in this favoured status and the exclusivity of its claim lie much of the seeds of the modern conflict in biblical lands, as its inspires the settler movement among other strands of seemingly non-negotiable beliefs.

The Judaeo-Christian story telling us of the generous welcome and hosting of three mysterious beings (angels, or according to Christian belief, two angels and the Lord himself) by Abraham adds another dimension - his hospitality. This is confirmed too in the Qur'an (51:24). They are there to inform him and Sarah that they would have a child of their own - news of which prompts Sarah to scoff laughingly at the seeming impossibility of such an event given their age.  (By this time of course Isma'il had been born to Ibrahim and Hajar, her former maidservant, a union Sarah herself had pushed Ibrahim into and which she subsequently was unable to bear due to mounting jealousy.)  The hospitable generosity with which Abraham welcomes this trio marks this as one of Abraham's trademark characteristics among his descendants and followers.

From further readings it seems that in later Jewish belief, the bosom of Abraham came to represent a 'sheol' (to Muslims a barzakh), a resting place before moving on to the next life, while in later Christian belief his bosom came to symbolize heaven (see Matthew 8:11, where Jesus describes the destiny of good men from the east and west to feast with Abraham in heaven along with Jacob and Isaac.). As a celestial being, Abraham is the arch patriarch for all three religions, and it is in him that all three faiths can converge, regardless of variation in the scriptural, 'his'torical accounts.

Cenotaph of Abraham in the Cave of the Patriarchs beneath the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

When we talk of Abraham we have to go beyond what we think of as history. Even biblical archaeology has not been able to come up with conclusive evidence about Abraham's life, just material with which to flesh out a semblance of what life was like at that time, and why his family may have migrated from from Ur, to Haran, then Egypt, Canaan, and, according to Muslims,to the Hijaz. All traces remain hypothetical - the footprints at Maqam Ibrahim next to the Ka'abah notwithstanding - and a matter of belief. His burial place however, is agreed upon by all three faiths.

It is more important to me to think of Ibrahim as the Qur'an describes him, as neither Muslim, nor Christian nor Jew, but hanif, pure in his monotheism and as khalilu'Llah - the friend of Allah. I like to think about this unusual being who boldly rejects his father's idolatrous ways and all the idol-worship around him, his ingenuity in showing the utter powerlessness of their false deities, his yearning for some permanent, overarching power that can embrace all the various natural phenomena he witnesses and experiences. I think about his patience and bravery in being willing to uproot himself and move around, his trust in the call from God, his incredible steadiness and certainty in fulfilling the command of his Lord in being willing to sacrifice the most precious thing to him, his son.

Does it matter whether it was Isaac/Ishaq or Ishmael/Isma'il? Only if you are trying to prove a doctrine of exclusivity or inclusivity. Where have claims to exclusivity on earth led mankind but into conflict, battle, bloodshed and injustice? Islam teaches us that no man is better than another simply by birth. This equality seems eminently reasonable to modern man.  As Muslims we take for granted so much our beloved Prophet Muhammad (S), but what he brought to his people and his times was truly revolutionary. He tried to replace the planes of kinship and tribalism among the Arabs with new ones of spiritual brotherhood and friendship in the belief of the oneness of God and the interconnectedness of  creation, of the seen and unseen, or this life with the next. Almost the entirety of one of our major modes of worship, the Hajj pilgrimage,  devolves from Hazrat Ibrahim's life and time. The Qur'an abounds in references to him and many of his supplications to Allah. Even the salutations - the proper Durood - we send upon the prophet Muhammad and his family includes Hazrat Ibrahim and his. The line of the Abrahamic lineage of prophets is reconnected to its spiritual source and there, looped in the bosom of Abraham, the father of all nations of the then known world, we can claim a unity, a common bond, a brotherhood, that transcends the advent of history.

Only in the experience of unity can we find peace.