Prophet Abraham. A Comparative Analysis of the Sacrifice Story in the Qu'ran and the Bible

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Orientalism / Sinology - Islamic Studies, grade: 1,0, San Diego State University (Institute for Religious Studies), course: The Qur'an, language: English, abstract: Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in the same God and all of them refer to one founding father. Abraham or Ibrahim, it depends from which perspective we are talking, is considered to be the progenitor of the three so-called Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For these great faiths, Abraham was the first human being who worshiped only one God. Jews call this God Yahwe or Elohim, Muslims call him Allah and in Christianity it is God the Father. It is true that these religions differ in their rules and duties but they do have some fundamental commonalities. All three religions are of monotheistic nature and they refer to Abraham as common founding father. Hence, it is not surprising that his figure and story can be found in their Sacred Books.

As Prophet Abraham is an identification figure for all three religions, it might be interesting to discuss his role and to explore differences and commonalities of his person and his life in the different books. However, it would be beyond the scope of the following paper to allow a comparison between Prophet Abraham¿s role in the Tora, in the Qur¿an and his role in the Bible. Therefore, this paper is only going to focus on Abraham in the Qur¿an, which represents the Islamic point of view and the Bible, which stands for the Christian perspective.