Cave of the Patriarchs

Overview

The Cave of the Patriarchs is a walled sanctuary in Hebron, in the West Bank, built over caves that Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition hold to be the burial place of Abraham and his family, the shared ancestors of all three faiths. It is divided into a synagogue and the Ibrahimi Mosque, and both are active places of prayer and worship. The site forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Present

The Cave of the Patriarchs is an active prayer site for both Jews and Muslims. The interior has been divided into separate worship areas: a synagogue for Jewish worshipers and the Ibrahimi Mosque, the Mosque of Abraham, for Muslim worshipers, following the killing of 29 Muslim worshipers by an Israeli settler inside the mosque in 1994. The Jewish side is administered by the Tomb of the Patriarchs Administration; the Muslim side through the Islamic waqf, a religious endowment, together with Palestinian authorities. Daily prayers take place on both sides. On a small number of days each year, tied to each faith's major festivals, the entire site is given over to one community alone. The site's status is shaped by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Religious Significance

Judaism (from antiquity)

The Cave of the Patriarchs is regarded as the second holiest site in Judaism, after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition, the site is the cave that Abraham, the first patriarch of the Jewish people, bought to bury his wife Sarah. The purchase is regarded as the first land the Jewish people acquired in the Promised Land, the land promised to Abraham's descendants. The tradition also holds that Abraham and Sarah, their son Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and their grandson Jacob and his wife Leah are buried here.

Christianity (from the 1st century CE)

Christianity venerates Abraham and the patriarchs buried here through the shared scriptures of the Old Testament. In Christian tradition, Abraham is honored as the ancestor of Jesus and the spiritual patriarch of the Christian church.

Islam (from the 7th century CE)

In Islam the site is the Mosque of Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic), whom Muslims revere as a prophet and founder of monotheism. Ibrahim is one of the most important prophets in Islam, regarded as a builder of the faith and an ancestor of its later prophets, including Muhammad. Muslims hold that Ibrahim, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah are buried here.

History & Structure

The Cave of the Patriarchs is a series of caves beneath a large rectangular stone enclosure built in the 1st century BCE under Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed king of Judea. The building above the caves changed its function as a church and as a mosque: it was a church under Christian Byzantine rule in the 6th century, and became a mosque after the Muslim conquest of 638 CE. Under Christian rule in the 12th century it was made into a church again, and was restored as a mosque in 1188. The caves themselves lie below the floor and are not accessible. UNESCO inscribed Hebron's Old Town, including the site, as a World Heritage Site in 2017.

Resources

• Related: Chabad.org: Cave of the Patriarchs (Machpelah)
• Related: Hebron Rehabilitation Committee: The History of the Ibrahimi Mosque