I am a hindu. I worship many gods and goddesses. The three major monotheistic religions of our world, Islam, Christianity and Judaism have little tolerance for Idol worship. In India we have bitter experience of this intolerance from 500 years of muslim rule and 200 years of colonial rules. But we have very little exposure to the Jews, though the seed of destroying idols and killing idol worshippers was started by Abraham. In spite of all the differences between these three religions, the story of God creating this world, Resting on the 7th day, Adam and Eve, Abraham ( Ibrahim) and Moses ( Musa), Jacob ( Yakub) and Ishmael are common to all of them. This shows that they have a common origin. Each of them has a different version of the same events though.
opinion is personal
As an outsider, I would retell only those events that appear in the holy scriptures of all the three religions, Torah, Bible and Qur’an. Each holy book has its own version of these common events. Each narrative is so different from the other that the same chains of events have led to centuries of fights between the Christians and Jews ( anti-semitism), Christians and Muslims ( Crusades) and now Jews and Muslims ( West Bank and Gaza conflict). Each community would quote their own version to justify killing of the others.
Here is a third party view- an Hindu perspective. I have taken every effort to verify the correctness of the facts. Such a huge story is likely to have some factual error. It's my humble request to point out such factual error for review and correction.
Thanks for going through.
The story of Abraham and Sarah
( Brahma and Saraswati)
Abraham ( Ibrahim), the grand patriarch of three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam was born in the ancient city of UR. UR is located in modern Iraq. His father was an Idol maker by profession. They would make clay idols of various gods and sell in the market. All the ancient religions: Greeks, Romans, Hindus, Chinese would pray many Gods. There will be the gods for rains, Sun, Moon , fertility, harvests and so on. Prior to the birth of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH, the tribes of Mecca had 360 idols for the 360 days of a year.
One day the cart of Abraham loaded with clay gods toppled and idols broke. This set Abraham in thinking. If the clay idols cannot take care of themselves, how can they look after us humans. He left UR in search of the One True God.
UR was located in the Delta of the two great rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Abraham and his wife Sarah travelled along the bank of the great rivers till they reached Canaan. Canaan is the land between the Sea ( Mediterranean ) and the river, Jordan. It roughly corresponds to the present day Israel and Palestine. God has promised Abraham that he, “Abraham would be the father of a great nation and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.”
Unlike the Indian traditions, where God can be born as a human being and a human can be a God ( Aham Brahmasi, Tat Twam Asi, I am god, so Are You), the God of Abraham, with a capital G was always above and separate from Man. He has no form. He would talk directly to Abraham.
The seed of contention
Abraham was already 100 years old and his wife Sarah was 90. But they did not have a child. In order to fulfil the prophecy, Sarah sent her hand maiden Hagar to Abraham. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.
( In Mahabharat, we see Vyasa fathering Dhritarashtra and Pandu when Vichitravirya failed to produce a heir for the throne. )
Later on Prophet Mohammad and all Arabs will be his descendants. All the three religions accept that Ishmael the ancestor of muslims is the first born of Abraham. Muslims believe that Hagar was the princess of Pharaoh and the legal wife of Abraham. Jews accept that Hagar was an Egyptian maid servant of Sarah. Hence her descendants have no rights over Abraham’s land.
Isaac the patriarch of Jews and Christians.
When Sarah was 100 years old, true to the prophecy, she became pregnant and gave birth to Isaac. Each time she would see Ishmael, she would feel insecure about the future of her son. So she forced Abraham to turn both Hagar and Ishmael away from their family into the desert. This Abraham did.
Jacob was the son of Isaac. Jacob was also known as Israel. He was the father of all the 12 tribes of Israel.
While the descendants of Abraham were roaming in the deserts of west Asia, Egypt was a rich and powerful country because of the river Nile. It was ruled by the powerful Pharaoh. They would pray to many Gods. Jacob has the power of clairvoyance and he could interpret dreams. The eleven brothers became jealous and sold Jacob as a slave. Eventually Jacob reached the court of the great Pharaoh and rose to be a very prominent person because of his power of interpreting dreams. The Pharaoh was impressed by him. There was frequent famine in the deserts of Canaan and the eleven brothers of Jacob also left Canaan and reached Egypt.
Israelites spent the next 400 years as slaves in Egypt till Moses led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea in search of the promised land. ( Israelites here are referred to the Sons of Jacob )
The wandering tribes of Israelites came from Egypt and massacred the prosperous city dwellers of ancient Canaan. ( Book of Joshua: The Israelites destroyed Jericho and killed all its inhabitants.) How can the One and True God allow one sided killing of humans ? Only because they are pagans and worshiped idols. The book of Joshua tries to validate their barbarian action in Canaan by citing frequent help of God in the destruction of natives of Canaan.
The story of Joshua to David and Solomon was a mythical story of Jewish occupation of the promised land. The only historical event available to us is the destruction of their temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar and enslavement of Israelites in Babylon. ( Babylonian exile )
Safa, Marwa and Zamzam
Hagar and her son Ishmael were left in the desert fending for themselves. The mother became famished and the child became dehydrated. There were two hillocks: Safa and Marwa but no water. In her desperation, Hager ran 7 times between the two hillocks in search of water but in vain. But there, beneath the baby was the well of Zamzam a perennial source of water. This place holds great religious significance for Muslims. Prophet Mohammed PBUH and all the Arabs were direct descendants of Ishmael. Today, Haj Pilgrims run 7 times beween Safa and Marwa and consider the water of Zamzam holy.
The story so far..
God created the world in 6 days and took rest on the 7th. Adam and Eve partook the forbidden fruit and were banished from Eden for ever. Moses led the sons of Israel out of Egypt. The red sea parted and the One True God led the Israelites to their Promised land. The wise king Solomon built the first temple at Jerusalem which was destroyed by the Babylonians. These are the narratives of Hebrew Bible.
The books of Torah is a narrative of faith and sacrifice, God’s Covenant with man and God protecting those who followed his law. But this has happened at the cost of destruction of thousands of Pagans. Because the native tribes of Palestine would worship idols of many Gods.
Historicity
The three scriptures, Torah, Bible and Qur’an describe identical events but with different interpretations.
The term Palestine appears in the 500 BCE for the first time in the Greek history by Herodotus . Recorded history of the destruction of the Second Temple, Crucifixion of Jesus and Spread of Islam and the Crusades are available in the public domain.
It is evidence based that after the destruction off the temple by Romans in 70CE, most of the Jews migrated worldwide. Palestine, the land between the Sea and the River was populated by a Muslim majority after the advent of the prophet Muhammad. Later on, many Jews have risen to very prominent positions in Europe and America and were able to motivate these nations for a separate Jewish state in Palestine.
During the first World War, this land was under the control of the Ottoman Turks and has a Muslim majority. In the first World War, the British hastily declared a Jewish state in the Palestine in order to get support of Jews against the ottomans. the war was not over then. Did the British have the authority to divide a land which was not under their control and where no British diaspora live ?
Balfour Declaration 1917
- During the Belfour declaration of a Jewish State in Palestine in 1917, the demography stood as below:
- Muslims – 540,000
- Christians – 66,000
- Jews – 61,000.
But the British won the World War 1 and the jews got a separate state as promised. Finally in 1948, a Jewish state was carved out in a Muslim dominated land which led to displacement of half a million Palestinians. The US and Europe supported this.
And India !
We are not sure on which side are we ?
PW- Israel
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 