﴿ قَالَ أَتَعْبُدُونَ مَا تَنْحِتُونَ ﴾

“He answered: “Do you worship something that you [yourselves] have carved,”

The people of Abraham’s community were perhaps going out of town to participate in some festival. Members of his household invited him to accompany them, but he managed somehow to excuse himself. When all the people had left, he entered the temple during the night and broke the deities kept there. It is important to note here that Abraham did so after continuous logical persuasion had failed to yield any result. When his people did not realise or accept the falsity of the deities by means of rational pleadings, by breaking the deities Abraham demonstrated that they were just a sham. Had they been genuine deities, they would have saved themselves from being smashed. This infuriated the people of Abraham’s community so much that they decided to kill him and throw him into a fire. But God saved him from it. Thereafter, he left his native place, Mesopotamia (now called Iraq). At that time, he prayed, ‘O, God ! Bless me with a pious and righteous offspring so that, by teaching and training, I may make him a believer and a Muslim who, after me, will continue to perform the mission of preaching the oneness of God.’