This week in Western Civilization Mr. Woods briefly reviewed humanity’s early history, starting with Adam and Eve and ending the review in 70 AD when the Roman prince, Titus, attacked Jerusalem. In this essay, I am going to briefly talk about all of the main events that happened between the time of Prophet Abraham and Prophet Moses.
Before I begin, I would like to give a disclaimer. The events described in class are the Biblical version of history. Since I am a Muslim, I will be talking about the Islamic version.
Abraham
Abraham was originally from the Babylonian city of Ur, which is situated in modern day Iraq. When Abraham tried to call his people to worship the one and only God, they tried to punish him by burring him in a pyre. After this incident, Abraham left Ur with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, and moved to the precincts of Jerusalem. After many years of his marriage to Sarah, he married Hagar, who bore him his first son, Ishmael, in his old age.
God commanded him to move to the desert with his wife, Hagar, and infant, Ishmael. Some years later, he had another son with Sarah whose name was Isaac. He would thus travel between those two places.
When Ishmael was in his preteens/teens, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son and seeing that he was completely devoted to God, He replaced the sacrifice with a goat.
Subsequently, through Isaac, Abraham had Jacob and Esau as his grandsons.
Jacob and Joseph
Jacob had 12 sons through multiple wives. They are known as the Tribes of Israel since Jacob was also known as Israel.
One day, the older sons took one of the younger sons, Joseph, along with them on a trading trip, and out of jealousy that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite, they threw him into a well. A trader rescued Joseph and sold him to the king in Egypt. Joseph was granted wisdom of interpreting dreams by God and in an important interpretation of the king’s dream, he was elevated to a high position within the king’s court.
Eventually, Jacob and his entire tribe moved to Egypt and lived with Joseph.
After about 400 years, after the king had been defeated by a pharaoh, the tribes of Israel had become slaves. Through one of Jacob’s descendants came Moses.
Moses
God chose Moses to be one of his prophets to deliver his message of the Oneness of God, as he had done with Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
God in his Infinite Wisdom, created circumstances where Moses grew up in the Pharaoh’s household. In his adulthood, he killed a man and escaped to modern day Upper Arabia. He married and lived there for 10 years before deciding to go back to Egypt. On his way, he saw a burning bush, and that was his first meeting with God. God instructed Moses to deliver the message of the Oneness of God to the Pharaoh.
After the Pharaoh rejected his messages and ridiculed him, God instructed Moses to take the children of Israel/Jacob out of Egypt and into freedom. You have all heard of the story of the parting of the sea and the drowning of the Pharaoh and his troops.
Once freed from the Pharaoh’s grasp in the Sinai Desert, Moses ascended Mount Tur and met God one more time where God gave him the Commandments on tablets. On his return, he found his people worshipping a golden calf that they created themselves. He ejected the disbelievers from his tribe and threw the golden calf away.
From there he made his way to Jerusalem, but because of the unwillingness of his people to fight the natives living there, they ended up wandering in the desert for 40 years.
Moses eventually died, never having set foot in Jerusalem.
Conclusion
As you can see, this is a very brief history of events that happened from Prophet Abraham to Prophet Moses. You may have noticed that the stories of Islam and Christianity overlap in quite a few places.
Thanks for reading!
Sophia Elahi RPC Blog 