President Donald Trump promoted the “Abraham Accords” during his Middle East trip on Monday, seeking to build on 2020 agreements that expanded diplomatic ties between Arab states and Israel.
The term itself carries profound religious and cultural weight, invoking a biblical patriarch revered as a foundational figure across three major global faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Adherents of these religions represent over half the world’s population.
Abraham, known as Ibrahim to Muslims, is often invoked by those seeking to bridge interfaith divides, serving as a common link. However, this shared legacy can also paradoxically become a source of discord, as certain faith groups assert themselves as his sole legitimate heirs.
“Everybody has tried to claim Abraham as their own, but in fact Abraham belongs to everybody,” said Bruce Feiler, author of “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.”
“Even in the last two years, we have seen this battle play out in a way that has played out for 4,000 years,” he said. “Everyone is trying to say, ‘This is my story, my point of view is the only point of view that matters.'”
But, he said, “the story belongs to all of us, the land will need to be shared, and the legacy will need to be a shared legacy for all of us.”
The Abraham Accords were a series of diplomatic and commercial agreements forged with U.S. influence between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020, during Trump’s first term. A permanent agreement in Gaza could help pave the path for talks with other majority-Muslim lands.
Abraham first appears in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, described as a childless elderly man who God promised would be the father of a great nation. God sends Abraham on a journey that leads to the area of present-day Israel and the Palestinian lands.
Abraham first has a son, Ishmael, with an enslaved woman, Hagar. Then Abraham’s wife, Sarah, who is beyond childbearing years, miraculously conceives and bears Isaac. Hagar and Ishmael are banished, although Ishmael returns after Abraham’s death to help Isaac bury their father.
In a pivotal biblical story — retold each Rosh Hashana, marking the Jewish new year — God orders Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham agrees, binds Isaac to an altar and is stopped before killing his son by an angel who says Abraham has passed a test of faith.
Isaac and his son Jacob become ancestors of the Jews, according to Genesis.
Christianity embraces Abraham as an exemplar of faith — willing to believe and obey God.
Islamic and Jewish traditions depict a young Abraham as smashing his father’s idols as he embraced the worship of one, almighty God.
Muslims, however, place Ismail (Arabic for Ishmael) rather than Isaac at the center of the binding story. They honor Ismail as a righteous prophet who, according to tradition, is an ancestor of the prophet Muhammad. Muslims believe the rock upon which Abraham offered his son is within the Dome of the Rock, the gold-domed shrine in Jerusalem.
