A Garden of Roses from Fire

A Garden of Roses from Fire

Mankind increased in numbers aft er Prophet Noah. Th ey built new cities and started living in communities. As time passed people started straying away from the right path that the prophets had taught them and started doing wrong things and worshipping others as Lords. Allah sent many prophets to mankind to remind them of their great religion. Prophet Abraham was one of those prophets. He was sent as a prophet to the people of a city known as Babil, which partly belongs to the Anatolian region of modern day Turkey.

 Th ese people worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars, and statues that they had carved with their own hands. One night before becoming a prophet, Abraham looked at the stars and moon and thought, “How could it be that people worship these as their Lord?”. Th e stars that twinkled in the night and the moon that decorated the sky disappeared in the light of day. “Th e sun and moon that appears and disappears could not be my Lord”, he said. He was constantly in a state of contemplation.

 One day he woke up and watched the sunrise. Th e sun was shining with all its beauty. He watched it the whole day. Th e sun started to slip away as night approached, so Abraham thought this could not be the Lord of mankind. He was fi nding it hard to understand people. Th ere had to be an Almighty Creator who created everything; the sun, the moon and the stars. He thought about it for days and in the end believed in Allah as the Creator of the universe. Prophet Abraham was of excellent character. He was kind, generous, hospitable and loved looking aft er the poor. Just like the prophets before him, Allah called him and his people to do good works and to give up their bad ways.

Prophet Abraham’s father was an idol-worshipper. Th is situation was most upsetting for Abraham. One day he said to his father, “My dear father, why do you worship these statues that cannot hear, see, or be of any benefi t to you? My dear father, Allah is One, He has no partner and there is none like unto Him.” His father reacted angrily to these words and threw him out of his house as he said, “How could you deny our Lords?” Despite his father’s brute behaviour Prophet Abraham prayed to Allah to forgive his father and guide him to the right path. Prophet Abraham did not give up and continued to tirelessly explain to his people to only worship Allah and never to worship idols.

Nemrut, the King of Babil, was a merciless person. People stayed away from the call of Abraham through fear of him. One day Abraham went to Nemrut to invite him to believe in Allah. Nemrut said in a very self-conceited way: “I am the Lord of this country, who is your Lord?” Prophet Abraham said, “My Lord is Allah. He kills and resurrects.” In response to this Nemrut asked that the two people who had been sentenced to death be brought forth to him. He ordered his soldiers to kill one of the prisoners and to let the other go free.

He turned to Prophet Abraham and said, “See? I too can kill and resurrect.” Abraham replied, “My Lord raises the sun from the east. If you have the power make it rise from the west.” Even though Nemrut was lost for words he still refused to believe in Allah. Th ere was a huge temple in the city of Babil where townfolk would bring gift s to their idols and pray for their help. One day Abraham secretly entered the temple when the people of the town were besides themselves with entertainment at the local fair. He broke each of the idols with an axe, except the largest of the lot. He then hung the axe around the largest idol and left the temple without being seen. Th e people of Babil were horrifi ed in the face of what they saw when they returned to the temple aft er the fair.

Th ey wondered as to who could be responsible for what they saw. Th ey started to suspect Prophet Abraham as they knew he did not believe in idols. Th ey immediately called Abraham and asked him if he broke the idols. Abraham replied, “Can it be the one with the axe around its neck? Let’s ask it, maybe it saw who did it.” Th ey were all astonished at his response and took one look at the idol and another look at Abraham. One of them said, “Don’t make fun of us Abraham. You know very well that they are lifeless. It neither sees nor speaks, so how is it supposed to know who did it?” In response to this Abraham said, “Th at’s all very well but why do you worship idols that do not have the ability to see, speak or protect themselves? Believe in the Lord of the universe, Allah.” Th ese words profoundly aff ected those at the temple. Word started to spread throughout the town about the incident. Some gave up idolatry and started to believe in Allah.

Nemrut became very angry once he found out about this. He concluded that the only way to get rid of Abraham was to kill him. He decided to throw him into fi re in order to intimidate the believers. Th e collected fi rewood was piled up like a mountain in the city square. Prophet Abraham knew Allah would protect him. Nemrut glanced at Prophet Abraham in the hope that his fear would make him give up his belief. However Abraham stood straight and tall without even the slightest fear or anxiety.

Th e people of the town circled around the fi re. Abraham was then thrown in the middle of the raging fl ames. Everyone held their breaths as they watched. Th e fl ames instantly turned into a rose garden. While the eyes of the believers shone with happiness, Nemrut and the disbelievers nearly swallowed their tongues. Allah ordered the fi re not to burn Abraham. Fire that burns everything else became a cool rose garden for Abraham. Prophet Abraham was deeply thankful to his Lord for His miracle.

Th e disbelievers lost the courage to harm Abraham aft er that incident. Prophet Abraham migrated to Egypt in order to call people to Allah’s way. He had two sons, named Ishmael and Isaac. Allah gave prophethood to both of them.

Prophet Abraham rebuilt the sacred Kaba on its original foundation with his son Ishmael, which was fi rst constructed by Prophet Adam. Abraham and his son Ishmael are our prophets. Th eir lives are best explained in the Holy Qur’an.