Summary

In 513 AH the tombs of Ibrahim, the friend of God, Ishaq and Ya'qub were revealed ¹.

The account

A group of people saw them. Their bodies had not decayed, and in that cave there were lamps of gold and silver. Hamza ibn al-Qalanisi reports this in his history ¹.

the Ibrahimi Sanctuary (Haram al-Khalil)

The great walled sanctuary over the Machpelah cave at Hebron; al-Umari records Abraham buying the plot from Habri for fifty dirhams, then Sarah, Abraham, Rebecca, Isaac, Jacob and Leah buried within, and Solomon raising the enclosure where a pillar of light touched down. It had no door until the Muslims opened one after the conquest; its masonry holds stones thirty-seven spans long. From a door in the qibla, steps descend to a cramped underground passage the author himself crawled through, ending at a chamber with three grave-markers said to be Abraham, his wife and Isaac; the shrine tombs above stand paired — Isaac and Rebecca in the qibla, Abraham and Sarah under facing domes to the north, Jacob under a lone dome. Al-Harawi tells that in King Baldwin's day a spot collapsed in 513 and Franks entered to find the three prophets' bodies leaning against a wall in worn shrouds with lamps at their heads; the king renewed the shrouds and sealed it. Behind the sanctuary lies a grave ascribed to Joseph, kept outside since a voice cried 'he bears Egypt's tribute'. Every afternoon a simat feeds all comers — over thirteen thousand loaves in one night of 745 — the Crusaders having kept and even enlarged the endowment.

The Revealing of the Tombs of Ibrahim, Ishaq and Ya'qub in 513

At a glance

In time

Summary

The account

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Time

the Ibrahimi Sanctuary (Haram al-Khalil)