Masar Ibrahim al Khalil: Abraham’s Path
In August, 2003, we began working with Dr. William Ury and his team at the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University, in an historic international effort to support countries in the Middle East to open a network of cultural routes and walking trails following the legendary 
footsteps of Ibrahim/Abraham. The story of Ibrahim’s journey, which has been kept alive for some four thousand years in the landscape and memory of this region, records the origin of a spiritual tradition shared by more than three billion people in the world today.
Now called the Masar Ibrahim al Khalil or Abraham’s Path (www.abrahampath.org), the project has grown remarkably since its beginnings. The first sections of the Masar are now open in the West Bank of Palestine and in Jordan, coordinated by Palestinians and Jordanians with support from an international team. The international headquarters of the Masar is in Jordan, with a supporting association of Friends of the Masar established in many countries around the world.
The intention and ideal of the Masar is to provide a place of meeting and connection for people of all faiths and cultures, inviting us to remember our common origins, to respect our cultural differences, and to recognize our shared humanity. The Masar also serves as a catalyst for sustainable tourism and economic development; a platform for the energy and idealism of young people; and a focus for positive media highlighting the rich culture and hospitable people of the Middle East.
For the past seven years Elias has worked extensively in the development of the Masar – meeting with government, religious, and business leaders in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank to ensure that the project is both understood and fully owned by the people of the region who are its hosts.
(To view an audio slide show of one journalist’s experiences on the Masar, click here.)
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Letter from the Road #31: Harran, Turkey: WALKING WITH ABRAHAM – Elias
“It feels like the middle of nowhere – a rainy night, a poor neighborhood of scattered mud-brick and cement-block houses, puddles forming in the unpaved streets – but it was here in Harran, in what is now southeastern Turkey, that the religions of half of humanity had their beginning. In this place some 4,000 years ago Abraham heeded God’s call to “Go forth unto a land I will show thee,” an act of singular faith that is at the heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
(Read more…)
Letter from the Road #34: The Middle East: LEAVING OUR FATHER’S HOUSE – Elias
“…there is one crucial event in Abraham’s story from which everything else emerges: God’s call, “lech lecha,” Go forth! And the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father’s house unto a land I will show you.” And Abraham did. He took a step. He acted.
That step created the path. It was a step away from his father’s house. It was step into the unknown, for God had not told him where to go, just to go. Although we see in the history of the Abrahamic religions just the opposite tendency, with adherents of each religion and sub-sect refusing to leave their father’s house, nevertheless at the heart of what is honored in Abraham’s story is this particular step and the faith it signifies to walk into the unknown, to release the habitual thoughts and fixed ideas that reinforce our sense of separateness from each other.
This step is a subversive act. It undermines the entire structure of human identity. It is the ultimate crossing of borders, leaving our father’s house. And at the same time it signifies pure faith, not the faith in beliefs, but the faith that this is a step into our real home, our real belonging, beyond the smaller belongings of our nation or religion or ethnicity.”
(Read more…)
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The Path of the Friend is a project of the Boulder Institute for Nature and the Human Spirit,
a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. 1644 Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado 80302 USA.
