Abraham’s Faith Astonishes the World

In Hazrat Abraham’s day it was not the done thing to leave your parents’ home and strike off on your own to some distant country a thousand kilometres away. Especially was this true if you had no land, or prospect of buying land, in the area where you were going. Imagine that no one has invited you except Allah, and of course you have never seen him, for he is invisible. You are burning all your bridges behind you, and if things go wrong in your new country of adoption, you cannot return from whence you came. This is how it was with the prophet Abraham. What magnificent confidence he had in the unseen Allah!

Allah calls men and women today, just as he called Abraham long ago, and he is still the faithful Guide to all who believe his promise. Abraham is “the father of all them that believe,”¹ and all who have true faith will likewise be ready to sacrifice everything earthly in order to follow his call.

After Abraham’s and Sarah’s long journey, they were tempted to wonder if Allah had forsaken them, for when they arrived in the land of Canaan they found that there was a “grievous famine” there. A person without faith would have turned around and gone back home again to Haran, but not Abraham. He went still further, searching for food, all the way to Egypt.² Infidels sometimes blaspheme Allah, saying that he should have provided food for his faithful, hungry servant in Canaan, whence he had called him to go. But Abraham’s faith did not falter. Allah was teaching us through Abraham’s experience that trials and hardships come even to faithful believers, and that he will never forsake us. The whole world has been moved by the sight of this lonely pilgrim wandering through strange lands in answer to God’s call.

Later he returned to Bethel “unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning.”³ All around him were idolaters, yet in every place where he pitched his tent he erected an altar and “called on the name of the Lord.”⁴ Allah rewarded his faith, for there were always some Canaanites who watched, wondered, listened, and joined him in the worship of Allah.

Abraham’s faith was again severely tried when there was not enough pasture land for both his flocks and those of his nephew Lot (Lut). He said to Lot: “Choose any part of the land you want. You go one way, and I’ll go the other.”⁵ Lot selfishly chose “for himself” the “whole Jordan Valley, all the way to Zoar,” which was “like the Garden of the Lord.” That left the poorer land to Abraham. “Lot … camped near Sodom, whose people were wicked and sinned against the Lord.”⁶ Soon he and his family became entangled in wicked city life and only Allah’s compassion later saved him.

Meanwhile, Allah comforted his “friend” Abraham: “From where you are, look carefully in all directions. I am going to give you and your descendants all the land that you see, and it will be yours forever.”⁷ North, east, south, west— there was no limit to the promise!

Lot later lost everything he possessed, including his sons, in the fiery destruction of Sodom. Although Allah had promised to give all the land to Abraham, he had unselfishly parted with the best of it. Why was he so willing to give up worldly property and to keep on living only in a tent? Is it possible that he saw some deeper blessing in the divine promise than we see on the surface?

Look again at the promise Allah made to Abraham: “All the land” that he could see was to be his and his descendants’ “for ever.” This included far more than Canaan or Palestine, for the promise included the whole earth as an everlasting possession.⁸ “Blessed are the meek,” says Jesus (el-Mesih Issa ben Maryam), “for they shall inherit the earth.”⁹ Hazrat Abraham is the “father of all them that believe,” and his true “descendants” are “the meek.” All “who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham,” “who is the father of us all,”¹⁰ will inherit the “land promised to Abraham.

The compassionate, merciful Allah is too kind to expect His servants, the faithful descendants of Abraham, to be content to live forever in slums, hovels, and deserts, or camp under the threatening stare of machine guns. This present earth is not their “home.” There is something better for them in Allah’s plan. The “earth” that the “meek” are to inherit will not be this ruined, war-ravaged, and often filthy place that we know now. It will be a “new earth … which,” says Allah, “I create.”¹¹ And those who live there will indeed possess it forever, for He says: “My people … will fully enjoy the things that they have worked for. … I will bless them and their descendants for all time to come. … There will be nothing harmful or evil.”¹²

This “new earth” is the Paradise described in the honoured Qur’an as the land “watered by rivers; its food is perpetual, and its shade also: this shall be the reward of those who fear God.”¹³

It is plain for anyone to see that this is the only possible understanding of Allah’s promise, for Abraham in his lifetime hardly owned a square metre of land in Canaan at any time. In fact, he was obliged to buy a little place where he might bury his dead wife—the Cave of Machpelah. (The mosque of Haram now covers the site.) Either Allah told Abraham a lie (which is unthinkable), or the promise is to be fulfilled in the new earth that He shall re-create.

The prophet David (Daud), whose psalms are among the most beautiful poetry in the world, composed this hymn of assurance:

Soon the wicked will disappear;

you may look for them, but you won’t find them;

the humble will possess the land

and enjoy prosperity and peace. …

The descendants of the wicked will be driven out.

The righteous will possess the land

and live in it forever.¹⁴

What King David understood is that neither Abraham nor any of us has as yet received the promised inheritance. It will come at the last day! The people of Jerusalem once thought that their city was the inheritance of Abraham and his descendants, but they were the ones who united in a terrible plan to kill the Christ. Later they martyred one of his followers, named Stephen. His dying speech mentioned Abraham. He said that Allah “did not then give Abraham any part of it [this land] as his own, not even a square metre of ground.”¹⁵ Thus the martyr Stephen denied that Jerusalem was Abraham’s city. He looked forward in faith to the resurrection day.

The first generation of those who followed Jesus accepted the Letter to the Hebrews as sent to them under God’s inspiration. In this letter Hazrat Abraham is mentioned as an example to us all:

It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him. He lived in tents. … For Abraham was waiting for the city which God has designed and built, the city with permanent foundations. …

These persons … did not receive the things God had promised, but from a long way off they saw them and welcomed them, and admitted openly that they were foreigners and refugees on earth. Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for a country of their own. … It was a better country they longed for, the heavenly country. And so God is not ashamed for them to call him their God, because he has prepared a city for them.¹⁶

Is it foolish to have this “faith of Abraham,” this supreme concern for the eternal blessings? Such faith is what has provided all the true blessings the world has ever enjoyed! True and lasting temporal prosperity is a by-product of that spiritual faith.

Unbelievers forget the true promise that God made to Abraham, and demand the shell, despising the sweet fruit within. They want this earth’s things now, determined even to create envy, strife, and murder to get them. They destroy their own peace and happiness, and that of their children, never finding anything on earth that they can truly hold secure. They cannot even sleep at night for fear of losing what they do have.

True believers, however, understand the promise of Allah exactly as did Abraham—it includes Paradise; but for now, they are content to worship Allah as “foreigners and refugees on earth,” knowing that he has “prepared a city for them.” They know true peace, even as Abraham did.

For the remainder of his life Abraham had to live in a tent. His lovely, two-storey brick home back in Ur was a thing of the past. He had to live far from the pleasant civilization he had known. He was a strange kind of pioneer, for he built no house for himself anywhere.

The Holy Book says that Abraham and Sarah died “in faith,” and were buried in that little plot at Machpelah for which they had paid hard money. When Sarah died, he “left the place where his wife’s body was lying, went to the Hittites, and said, ‘I am a foreigner living here among you; sell me some land, so that I can bury my wife.’” Think of it! Allah had promised him all the land he could see, north, east, south, and west, even the whole earth; yet here he is begging to buy a tiny cave “so that I can own it as a burial ground”!¹⁷

If you had asked Abraham at this time, “Where is the evidence that Allah has kept his promise to you?” I’m sure he would have responded with: “I am a foreigner and refugee on this earth. It is a better country I long for—the heavenly one. I will not be satisfied to take the shell of the fruit and leave the kernel. Life on this earth is full of troubles—see, there lies the body of my faithful wife Sarah. This earth is not what Allah has promised me. He has promised me something better. My faith in him has sustained me all these years and provided meaning for life, enriching my life with more peace and happiness than if I had owned all of Mesopotamia! It is better to follow Allah as a “foreigner and refugee” than to sit on a throne of gold in a selfish world.”

Abraham has two kinds of “descendants”: those who are his literal genetic descendants, and those who “walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham.” When Allah called him to leave his “native land … and go to a land that I am going to show you,” he added something more precious than all the gold and silver in the whole world: “You will be a blessing, … and through you I will bless all the nations.”¹⁸ This included a greater joy than merely inheriting Paradise, for it meant that the world’s salvation should come through his descendants. Such spiritual joy is greater than mere physical or sensual pleasure.

Another most important truth is that there is something which is vitally necessary for Abraham and his descendants to have in order for them to inherit Paradise as an everlasting possession. The holy apostle Peter declares that “in keeping with his [Allah’s] promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”¹⁹ This means that Allah included the blessed gift of righteousness, in his promise to Abraham. Only this righteousness could make him and his descendants fit to inherit such a Paradise. Man does not naturally possess that righteousness, any more than he naturally possesses that “new earth.” It is the gift of Allah’s grace. It is on the basis of Abraham’s faith that Allah can do this for him and for his true descendants who “walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham.” What glorious depths of meaning are included in Allah’s promises, things that lie far deeper than a superficial glance reveals!

Abraham has already blessed “all nations” with his faith, his knowledge of the truth of Allah, and his heart-appreciation of Allah’s glorious character. His faith was a connection between heaven and earth, the vital life-line that would save the world from the self-destruction which follows idolatry and selfishness.

Abraham’s true “children”, therefore, are those who have his faith, regardless of the national, racial, or colour group from which they may come. Are you willing to be one of his true “descendants”

Chapter 5: How Abraham Became “The Friend of God”

Index: In Search of the Treasure of Faith

References:

Romans 4:11.1.
Genesis 12:10-12.
Genesis 13:3, 4.
Verse 4.
Genesis 13:8, 9, TEV.
Verse 10-13-
Verse 15.
Genesis 17:8, TEV.
Matthew 5:5.
Romans 4:12, 16.
Isaiah 65:17, 18.
Isaiah 65:22-25, TEV.
The Qur’an, 13:35.
Psalm 37:10, 11, 28, 29, TEV.
Acts 7:5, 6, TEV.
Hebrews 11:8-16, TEV.
Genesis 23:3-9. TEV.
Genesis 12:2, 3, TEV, emphasis supplied.
2 Peter 3:13, NIV.