Since September 11, 2001 our country has been turned upside down! The media has been covering every corner of this tragedy and the goal of most is to see who can come up with the newest piece of information. There are so many questions to be answered and so few answers to be known. The purpose of this article is to bring new information from over 4000 years ago! Why has there been so much turmoil in the Middle East and why has our country been thrust into this war? I hope to bring light to such a dark part of our world and understanding to those who are willing to seek Truth.

This article will be outlined into three sections:

1. Historic significance
2. Muslim perspective (Of course it will be biased because of my faith in Christ including the Jihad.)
3. How this war made it to our borders!

I. Historic Significance

The historic perspective of the events that have traumatized the Middle East for centuries will be taken from the accounts of the Bible, more specifically the book of Genesis. Some who read this will automatically discredit the validity of this article because the Bible is a source of the information, but to those who doubt the validity of the Scriptures I will give you a brief apologetic view of the Bible. The Bible, which contains two sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament, was written over a period of 1500 years. The Old Testament was completed around 400 BC and the New Testament was completed 393 AD and the Bible was written by over 40 authors and 66 books written in three different languages. The uniqueness of the Bible stands alone because of the amazing consistency that flows through the pages. There has never been a book that has been copied more times and placed into more hands then the Bible and there also has never been a book that has been persecuted more. Yet, as time, people and so-called scholars have tried to disprove the Scripture, the Bible still stands today and will continue to stand. The Bible is the only religious book to also be backed historically as well. Although the Bible is not a history book, it has been archaeologically proven. I encourage those who doubt the validity of the Bible to read it for themselves. Genesis is the first book in the Bible and through this book, we find not only how the earth was formed, but how we became the people we are.

We start with the father of the Jewish Nation, Abraham. The accounts of his life are found in Genesis chapters 12-25, and through these chapters, we find why there is so much conflict in the Middle East. The Lord established a covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. In this covenant, God promises:

1. To make of Abraham a great nation, to multiply his seed exceedingly and to make him a father of many nations.
2. To bless Abraham and make him great.
3. To make Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth.
4. To bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.
5. To give Abraham and his seed forever all the land which he could see, later specified with definite boundaries.
6. To give him a sign of the covenant (circumcision).

These covenants that have been established by God to Abraham have much to do with the battles that have taken place for thousands of years. Abraham was promised a son, and he and his wife, Sarah, were unable over time to produce a son, so as their patience grew thin, they began to try in their own means to produce the son that would multiply the earth (Gen. 16:1-4). Their lack of patience led Sarah to ask Abraham to sleep with Hagar, their Egyptian maidservant whose name represents "bondwoman" according to the allegory in Galatians 4:21-23. Abraham agrees and, with Hagar, produce a son named Ishmael, who is described as "a wild donkey of a man" (Gen. 16:11). As a result of Abraham sleeping with Hagar, Sarah becomes very upset and drives Hagar from her presence (Gen. 16:6), and at that point the Lord informs Hagar to "return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority." Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, "I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they shall be too many to count" (Gen. 16:9-10 NASB). The borders of the promise land that were given to Abraham are as follows: "From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates" (Gen. 15:18). This is basically the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates river and everything in between. The reason I bring this up now is because after the angel of the Lord promises Hagar that her seed would greatly multiply, the angel of the Lord also gave Ishmael his land, "And he will live to the east of all his brothers" (Gen. 16:12 NASB). Ishmael’s borders are not defined, but we know that to the east of the land promised to Abraham is modern day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, etc. This is the area where Ishmael’s descendants settled, but we are not sure when they settled there. The question that arises is, did they go straight to their appointed land or did they settle in the borders of Abraham’s promised land?

"When Abraham died, his exiled son returned to assist his brother to bury their father (Genesis 25:9). In the same chapter we find the names of Ishmael's 12 sons (Genesis 25:12ff) and a brief report of his death at the age of 137 years (Genesis 25:17). According to Genesis 28:9 he also had a daughter, Mahalath, whom Esau took for his wife; in Genesis 36:3 her name is given as Basemath. Descendants: The character of Ishmael and his descendants (Arabian nomads or Bedouins) is very accurately and vividly depicted by the angel of Lord: "He shall be as a wild ass among men; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him" (Genesis 16:12). These nomads are, indeed, roaming the wilds of the desert, jealous of their independence, quarrelsome and adventurous. We may well think of their progenitor as of a proud, undaunted and rugged son of the desert, the very counterpart of the poor boy lying half dead from fatigue and exposure under the shrub in the wilderness of Beersheba: The supposed descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, whom Abraham sent away from him after the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:14-21). The sons of Ishmael are given in Genesis 25:13-14; they were twelve in number and gave rise to as many tribes, but the term Ishmaelite has a broader signification, as appears from Genesis 37:28. 36, where it is identified with Midianite. From Genesis 16:12 it may be inferred that it was applied to the Bedouin of the desert region East of the Jordan generally, for the character there assigned to Ishmael, "His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him," fits the habits of Bedouin in all ages. Such was the character of the Midianites as described in Judges 7, who are again identified with the Ishmaelites (Judges 8:24). These references show that the Ishmaelites were not confined to the descendants of the son of Abraham and Hagar, but refer to the desert tribes in general, like "the children of the east" (Judges 7:12). -H. PORTER

The land that surrounds modern day Israel has been an area for battle for over 3000 years, and the debate over whose land it is, is still yet to be resolved. To understand the conflict over this land, we must look at Abraham’s other son, Isaac.

After Abraham and Sarah disobeyed God by not believing in His covenant the Lord finally blessed Sarah with a child of her own. Abraham was nearly a hundred years old when Isaac was born and at his birth, the promise began! Galatians chapter 4 describes a covenant of two woman (Sarah "grace - the Christian church" and Hagar "law - the ceremonial law"), and as the Apostle Paul writes, he gives insight into the birth of the promise. Genesis chapter 21 mentions for the first time the birth of Isaac and that his name means, "joy", and after his birth the battle begins. Hagar and her son Ishmael begin to quarrel with Sarah and her son Isaac, "Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, ‘drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.’ And the matter greatly distressed Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant’" (Gen. 21:9-13 NASB). Abraham did as Sarah had instructed and sent Hagar and Ishmael out of their presence. Thus, the two nations are born! From this point forward a spiritual battle has been waged! "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise" (Galatians 4:21-23 NASB).

The land that was to be handed down to Isaac from Abraham was to be settled by their descendants, but as prophesied in Genesis 15:13: "And God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.’" This of course refers to the time the Israelites were in bondage to the Egyptian Empire, and during this time we are not sure where the descendants of Ishmael settled, but there is a good chance that some of them settled in the area of land that was promised to Isaac. As Isaac’s descendants began to prosper through his son, Jacob, a great plague hit the land and they were forced to find food in order to survive. Their journeys led them to Egypt where they stayed and multiplied greatly over the course of 400 years. The Lord brought a deliverer for them in the man of Moses, and as the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of bondage, they began their journey back to the "promise land". After 40 years of wandering in the desert, the Jewish nation begins their journey into a land flowing with "milk and honey". They waged war and the Lord brought them decisive victories, and it was evident to all that the Lord’s hand was on this nation. Over the course of time they never fully followed the Lord’s decrees and, therefore, their borders never reached to the full extent of the land that was promised to them (Euphrates river to the brook of Egypt). The nations that occupied the "promise land" were a mixed group of "Kenite, Kenizzite, Kadmonite, Hittite, Perizzite, Rephaim, Amorite, Canaanite, Girgashite and the Jebusite" (Gen. 15:19-21), just to name a few. The descendants of Ishmael had to have intermingled with these nations because of lack of structure and their wild natures. The question at hand is this: "What does this have to do with Islam?" The battle that has always been "spiritual" moved to the "physical" realm as the two nations battled over who really belongs in the "promise land". Ishmael and his descendants may have settled there first, but the Lord granted this land to the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Islam today is the son of Hagar’s descendants ("The elans of Mecca belonged to the tribe of Quraish, which traces its descent to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, both of whom are recognized in the Qur’an as prophets of God." Islam - The Straight Path, pg. 45). In this understanding, lies the battle between the Jewish Nation and the Nation of Islam.