she offered hadar, her maid, to abraham, for surrogacy. since she had given birth to a boy names ishmael, sarah told them she wanted both of them out for good. you see hagar s extreme distress in the bible. and then god appears to her and said fear not, from this child, i will also make a people, and this is the arab people. arabs to this day, trace their lineage right back to abraham through ishmael. each year, millions of christians make their pilgrimage to the place where they believe ismail made his home, mecca in saudi arabia. here, muslims also believe abraham came to visit ishmael and they built islam s first house of worship. the bible doesn t mention mecca. instead, it tells us abraham finally found a permanent home
things that perhaps they need not. adam could have said, that fruit, i m not going to eat it. but he took the fruit and he ate it. does that trouble you the way it s been portrayed? of course it s troubling. but it reminds me that the bible, for all that we say it s a divine document, it is written from a man s point of view. ironically, in the muslim holy book, the koran, there s more than enough blame to go around. both adam and eve are to blame equally for eating the forbidden fruit. so, they re co-equal human beings. and i think that s been lost in today s narrative about islam for muslims. in the end it didn t really matter whose fault it was, they both suffered the consequences of disobeying god. the first lesson of genesis is cold and hard. for humans, sustaining life on this earth is not meant to be easy. we have to go out into that cold, suffering world where we labor by the sweat of our brows and give forth our children in pain and have to suffer and die. and we
the nile to save him and to protect him from the terror of the pharaoh at the time, who was having israelite children murdered. a prophet and a teacher, a leader and a liberator, moses is revered by christians, muslims, and jews the world over. she is really, really fast. his story has touched so many lives, like captain ahmad s. he s a devout muslim. what do you think moses looked like? what does his face look like? beard? no, no. without a beard. without a beard? yeah. little, but not big. not big. what s the most important thing for you about moses? translator: he served humanity and the oppressed. god served him to free the people from the pharaoh. well, if i m a slave and i ve got a brutal master, and somebody is telling me about a guy who set his people free, i
holiest week of the year on rosh hashanah. christians read it, the same story, in their holiest week of the year, on easter. muslims read it, the same story, in their holiest week of the year. to this day, the story is commemorated by muslims all over the world on a holiday called aid al atta. the hassan family are american muslims living in new jersey. one son, youssef, is about the same age abraham s son would have been. and he s trying to imagine how he would have felt. he was probably extremely scared at what was going to happen. and he was very worried for his dad because he knew his dad was going through a long trouble just getting over the fact he had to kill his son. i m sure he understood it coming from a higher power. for jews and christians, the
i m standing under the rock where muslims believed the profit mohammed ascended to heaven. this is holy in all three religions because they believe this is where god demanded abraham bring his son, isaac, for sacrifice. today, this place is marked by the familiar gold dome of the rock that dominates the old city of jerusalem. and it sits on one of the most contested sites in the world. even the name of this site is complicated. jews call it the temple mount. while muslims call it haram al sherif or noble sanctuary. on one side is the western wall, the holiest site the jews come to pray at. nearby, the christian church. in just one square mile, the most revered places of each of the three religions. and this is also the place where the bible tells us that god had