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It is fitting that our encounter today should be called “In the Footsteps of Abraham.” It is the faith of Abraham in the One and Holy God that forms the deepest link between Jews, Christians, and Muslims because it lies at the very origins of our religious histories.  Through the centuries, Jewish rabbis, Christian theologians, and Muslim scholars - thinkers, teachers and mystics of all three traditions - have found in the stories of Abraham recounted in the Hebrew Bible, the two Christian Testaments, and the Qur’an rich material for meditation.  Even in our modern world, religious teachers like Martin Buber, Pope John Paul II, and Said Nursi have drawn inspiration from the stories of Abraham that form a key element in our common spiritual heritage.

I would like to mention several points at which our reflections on Abraham can affirm how much we as Jews, Christians, and Muslims, hold in common.  I am especially impressed with how often Pope John Paul II, the spiritual head of the Catholic Church to which I belong, has gone back to the figure of Abraham in order to illustrate his affirmation of the common values held by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and I would like to share some of those references with you.

1. Abraham, the model of faith.  Abraham’s trust in God, his believing in God’s promises even when what was promised seemed impossible and even when God seemed to be working against their fulfillment, shows the importance of absolute trust in His faithfulness.  Faith in God gives Jews, Christians, and Muslims the strength and confidence they need to make a positive contribution to society, to endure setbacks, overcome discouragement and to continue to work for peace and human fellowship even at moments of failure and in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles.

John Paul II’s first visit outside Rome after becoming Pope was to Ankara, Turkey, in 1979.  Speaking to the Christians at the Mass, the Pope stressed both the spiritual unity of the three communities descended from Abraham as well as the effects of having an active faith like that of their spiritual ancestor.  He said:

Faith in God, which the spiritual descendants of Abraham, Christians, Muslims, and Jews profess, when it is lived sincerely so that it penetrates life, is an assured foundation of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom and a principle of rectitude for moral conduct and life and society.  As a consequence of this faith in God the transcendent Creator, human beings find themselves at the summit of creation.[1]

In the New Testament, St. Paul devotes the fourth chapter of his Letter to the Romans to a reflection on the theme of Abraham.  His main point is that Abraham was justified by God, not because of any merit on his own part, but because of God’s sovereign goodness and grace.  “Abraham,” he says, “is the father of us all,” not because he deserved to be so, but because God freely bestowed that favor upon him.

2. Abraham, the Friend of God.  Abraham is called “the intimate friend of God” by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  In the Hebrew Bible, on the lips of the prophet Isaiah God calls the Jewish people “My servant, seed of Abraham my friend” (Isaiah 41: 8).  This is repeated by Paul in the Christian New Testament when he refers to Abraham as “a just man and friend of God” (Romans 4: 2).  In the Qur’an, Abraham is “Al-Khalil,” God’s intimate friend, as in the verse which says: “Allah has taken Abraham as a friend (Qur’an 4: 125).

The common recognition of Abraham as God’s friend can still speak to modern people like us, reminding us that at the deepest level, religion is not about rituals, regulations, and doctrinal formulations, but rather it is a matter of living in a close, personal relationship with God.  Abraham, Al-Khalil, remains a model for Jews, Christians and Muslims because he inspires us to seek to deepen our own relation to God, a relationship of love, obedience, and trust, a relationship where we aspire to be, like Abraham, “God’s servant.”

This relationship can be summed up in terms like “holiness,” “uprightness,” or “service,” and Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all called to be holy before God.  In 1985, Pope John Paul II addressed a Muslim-Christian seminar on holiness and noted how our common faith in Abraham should open the door to mutual exploration of what is involved in true holiness.  “As I have often said in other meetings with Muslims,” said the Pope, “your God and ours is one and the same, and we are brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham.  Thus it is natural that we have much to discuss concerning true holiness in obedience and worship to God.”[2]

3. Abraham, the patron of migrants.  One of the marks of modern life is mobility.  People have been on the move throughout human history, probably even before God called Abraham to bring his family from Ur to the land which God would guide him.  In modern times, this movement of peoples is greater than ever, sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes to flee war or discrimination, sometimes to get a new start in life for their family.  For example, a century ago, there were few Muslims in Western Europe, but now they number in the millions.

Migration, however, is not without its dangers.  When people move to new regions with new cultures and languages, they can too easily lose their roots, forget their values, discard their moral principles, even abandon their faith in God.  For this reason, Pope John Paul II, speaking to Muslim migrants to Europe in Mainz, Germany, urged them to “Live your faith also in this foreign land.”  “When you are not embarrassed to pray publicly, you thereby give us Christians an example worthy of respect.”  The Pope regards migrants who bring their faith to new lands as following the pattern of Abraham and his family who faithfully responded to God by leaving their homeland and trusting that God would accompany them and guide them.  He said:

Not all the guests in this land are Christians.  Especially, there is a great community who identify themselves with the faith of Islam.  When with sincere hearts you brought your faith in God from your homeland to this foreign land, where now you pray to God who is Creator and Lord, you truly follow in the footsteps of that great pilgrim band of people who from the time of Abraham until today have continued to leave their native lands in order to seek and find God.[3]

4. Abraham, the model of hospitality.  Complementary to migration is hospitality.  Migrants do not move to uninhabited regions, but to lands where others have been residing for centuries.  They meet peoples living there with their own cultures, traditions, languages, and ways of life.  The Bible (Genesis 12-23) recounts Abraham’s encounters, both good and bad, with the peoples of Harran, Canaan and Egypt.  Abraham and his family did not enter these regions as invaders or conquerors, but as guests.  They had to learn new ways and customs, to adapt, to make friends, to make a home for themselves among people who were previously strangers to them.

For the residents of any country, it is not easy to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate newcomers.  Elements of pluralism are introduced.  Old ways of doing things can often not be sustained in the new context.  Moreover, migrants not only have much to learn in their new surroundings, but their physical and emotional needs are often great and, at least in the beginning, beyond their ability to resolve alone.

For this reason, hospitality is a key virtue among all descendants of Abraham.  Welcoming others is not merely good manners and a sign of civility, but for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, hospitality is an expression of faith and an act of worship of God.  For this reason, St. Paul says: “Make hospitality your special concern” (Romans: 12: 13).

The key role of women in both migration and hospitality must not be underestimated.  Sarah accompanied Abraham on his wandering - sharing the dangers, caring for guests, and rejoicing at the promise of a child.  God’s special concern for the vulnerability of women in precarious situations is beautifully recounted in the story of Hagar, alone in the desert with the infant Isma’il, rushing from Safa to Marwa and back in search of water, and God’s rewarding her fidelity and hope at the spring of Zamzam.

There is a story in the Bible (Genesis 18: 1-14) in which Abraham received three mysterious visitors with great hospitality.  He ran to meet them, brought them water to wash, and fed them bread, butter and milk and butchered a calf, while Sarah baked them grain cakes.  They did this not knowing that the guests were angels sent by God to bring news of the birth of a son in their old age.  Pope John Paul commented on this passage when he met the Pakistani President in 1981, when Pakistan was hosting many Afghan refugees.  The Pope stated: “One of the salient characteristics of Abraham - to whose faith Christians, Muslims and Jews alike eagerly link their own - was his great spirit of hospitality, displayed in a particular way when he welcomed three guests at the Oak of Mamre.”[4]

The author of the “Letter to the Hebrews” refers to this event when he says: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13: 2).  The Qur’an (51: 24-30) relates the same story, praising the generous hospitality of Abraham and his wife and noting how Abraham offered the strangers a greeting of “Peace.”

5. Abraham, the seeker of eternal truth.  Said Nursi, one of the leading Muslim thinkers of the 20th Century and an early proponent of Muslim-Christian unity, was deeply impressed by a Qur’anic story of Abraham (Qur’an 6: 75-79).  It is the famous tale, not found in the Bible but often recounted in the Jewish midrashim, in which Abraham was gradually led to the worship of the one, eternal, true God.  Abraham looked up at the myriads of stars in the sky and saw them as lovely objects of worship, but abandoned the idea when he saw that the stars set.  The same occurred with the sun and the moon.  Abraham recognized the astral bodies as being unworthy of his worship and said, “I do not love those things that set” (Qur’an 6: 76.)

These words of Abraham reported in the Qur’an greatly occupied Said Nursi’s meditations, for he repeatedly refers to them in the Risale-i Nur.  He tells how he wept upon reading them, for he saw in them a reference to the transitory nature of the universe.[5]  He sees people as “infinitely weak, poor and needy,” tossed around by the changing, impermanent, inconclusive events of life.  Although the pleasures of life appear attractive and shining as stars, they all eventually set.  By contemplating the transient nature of power, wealth, beauty, and ambition, the believer, like Abraham, is invited to devote oneself to “the Eternal Beloved ,”[6] the only One who is worthy of worship and service.

Abraham is relevant for Jews, Christians, and Muslims today because we, like him, are invited to devote our energies, talents, and desires to the one unchanging Rock of our existence: “the Eternal One, the Beloved One.”  Abraham reminds us of how much we have in common - the importance we give to faith and a personal relationship with God, to human qualities like hospitality, solidarity and respect for others, to the constant search for what is true, permanent, and absolute in life.  In a world where the dominant ideology is shaped by a thirst for superficial pleasures, short-term goals, materialist impulses toward greed and acquisition, and destructive principles of civilizational conflict, our common memory of Abraham should move the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to work together in favor of the divine and humane values taught us by the one God of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and all those who seek to do His will.

[1]John Paul II, Homily at Mass, Ankara, Turkey, 26 November 1979.

[2]John Paul II, “Address to participants of the “Colloquium on Holiness,” Vatican City, 9 May 1985.

[3]John Paul II, “Speech to migrant workers,” Mainz, Germany, 17 November 1980.

[4]John Paul II, Address to the President of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, 16 February 1981.

[5]Said Nursi, The Words, Seventeenth Word, Second Station, p. 228. Cf. also The Words, Twenty-Fourth Word, Fifth Branch, p. 374.

[6]Said Nursi, The Words, Ninth Word, p. 56. Cf. The Words, Seventeenth Word, p. 230.