All Scriptures On God Cannot Lie

Prophet Abraham: The Father of Prophets (Part 1)

One of the prophets given the most attention in the Quran is Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him). 

The Quran tells of him and his unwavering belief in God, first calling him to reject his people and their idolatry, and later to prove true to various tests which God places before him.

In Islam, Abraham is seen as a strict monotheist who calls his people to the worship of God alone. For this belief, he bears great hardships, even disassociating himself with his family and people through migration to various lands. He is one who fulfills various commandments of God though which he is tested, proving true to each one.

Due to this strength of faith, the Quran attributes the one and only true religion to be the “Path of Abraham”, even though prophets before him, such as Noah, called to the same faith.

Because of his tireless act of obedience to God, He gave him the special title of “ Khaleel

In the Quran, Abraham is given the only name “Ibrahim” although in the Bible Abraham, all sharing the original root, b-r-h-m, is known as Abram at first, and then God is said to change his name to Abraham, but the Quran mentioned nothing about it.

Abraham is estimated to have been born 2,166 years before Jesus in or around the Mesopotamian city of Ur, 200 miles southeast of present-day Baghdad. His father was ‘Aazar’, ‘Terah’ or ‘Terakh’ in the Bible, an idol worshipper, who was from the descendants of Shem, the son of Noah. He is likely to have been Akkadian, a Semitic people from the Arabian Peninsula who settled in Mesopotamia sometime in the third millennium BC.

Archeological discoveries from the time of Abraham paint a vivid picture of the religious life of Mesopotamia; its inhabitants were polytheists who believed in a pantheon, in which each god had a sphere of influence. The large temple dedicated to the Akkadian moon god, Sin, was the main centre of Ur. This temple was believed to be the physical home of God, the chief god of the temple was a wooden idol with additional idols, or ‘gods’, to serve him.

Prophet Abraham was one of the prophets to whom a scripture was revealed: “Verily!  This is in the former Scriptures, The Scriptures of Abraham and Moses.” (Quran 87:18-19)

Like those around him, Abraham’s father Azar was an idol worshipper.