Abraham (Hebrew Avraham; Arabic Ibrahim) is the patriarchal founding figure of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Traditional dating places his lifetime in the second millennium BCE in and Canaan. According to Genesis, Yahweh called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, promised him a homeland in Canaan and descendants more numerous than the stars, and sealed the covenant in circumcision. He fathered Ishmael with the Egyptian servant Hagar (from whom Muslim tradition traces the Arabs and the line of Muhammad) and then Isaac with Sarah at an extreme age (from whom Jewish and Christian traditions trace their lineage). His near-sacrifice of Isaac at Yahweh's command — the Aqedah — is among the most analysed passages in all of religious literature. By the count of the three Abrahamic faiths, roughly 4 billion people today look back to him as a spiritual ancestor.
All Figures
Patriarch of the Three Abrahamic Religions
Abraham
c. 1,996 BCE – 1,821 BCE
The patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam — the man called out of Ur to a land he had never seen, and to whom three world religions trace their origin.
Lifetime
Date source not yet attached to this catalogue record.