Hello everyone,
I was reading the Quran and in it we see multiple verses regarding Abraham.
In the Quran, Abraham and Ishmael are credited with building the Kabba and establishing Mecca.
All religious beliefs aside, I'm very curious as to what kind of historic evidence we have to back these claims up.
Thanks.
Hello,
As of this time, we have no archaeological or extrabiblical evidence that mentions Abraham, Ishmael, or Isaac. We haven't found any texts from Mesopotamia or Egypt that mention him, we haven't found his tomb, and writing was not prevalent or used much in the land between Mesopotamia and Egypt until about 800ish years after Abraham's suggested lifetime.
In general, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to find evidence of a particular person in antiquity, especially in areas where there was no writing. This means, in the case of the Hebrew scriptures, until the time of King David during the 10th century BC.
As far as I am aware, the Quran was written after 600 AD, well after the time period in question. We have other ancestral stories regarding Abraham, from his other descendants, that were recorded over a thousand years prior to the Quran, which is the Hebrew Bible, so I suppose you could read that for some older perspectives on what Abraham is supposed to have done, but we have nothing from contemporary times.