Every year, in a dry valley in Arabia, crowds of people walked in circles around a stone building shaped like a box. They hoped the goddesses they sang to would put in a good word for them with the great God above. They already believed in one God who made the sky and the earth. But they did not know what he was like. Six hundred years before, Jesus had said that no one before him had ever seen the Father.
A word, not a name
In the lands around Jesus, the word for the Almighty sounded almost the same everywhere. The Canaanites, who lived in that land before Israel, said El. The Hebrew books say Elohim. Six hundred years after Christ, the people of Arabia said Allah, which means "the God." None of these is a name. Each one is simply the word for God. People fought over what he was like, and whose side he was on.
The red god with the golden hand
The stone box stood in the town of Mecca, and it was called the Kaaba. The most honored one stood inside. His name was Hubal, and he was carved from red stone in the shape of a man. His right hand had broken off, so the tribe that kept the Kaaba made him a new one out of gold. When a family had a hard choice, his keeper drew an arrow to give Hubal's answer.
Ibn Ishaq, who wrote the first life story of the man who later brought the Quran, tells a story about those arrows. A chief named Abd al-Muttalib promised his god that if he had ten sons, he would give one back as a sacrifice. The arrow fell on the youngest, a boy named Abdullah, the son his father loved most. His mother's family stopped the father, and they offered camels in the boy's place. Only when there were a hundred camels did the arrow fall on the camels. The boy lived, and he grew up to be the father of the man who brought the Quran.
The people of Mecca also believed in Allah, whom they called the Lord of the Kaaba, but they said three goddesses were his daughters. When the Quran came, it taught that the one God who made all things has no partners and no children. It also stood up for the baby girls some fathers were burying in the sand. In the year 630 after Christ, an army from Medina, a town to the north, entered Mecca. The statues were knocked down, Hubal fell with them, and one God was declared the only one. Once again the winners kept the record, and nobody who prayed to the goddesses left a book that lasted.
Jesus showed him
The Gospel of John tells how, in Capernaum, a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus told a crowd in the meeting house who had seen the Father.
Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
John 6:46 · King James Version
If anyone before him had truly met the Father, they would never have described a God who wanted blood and called killing justice in his name. The God of Jesus is the Almighty, and he does not want blood. Near the end, a friend of his named Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus told him that whoever had seen him had seen the Father. He touched the sick, and he never ordered a killing.
The old habit came back after him too, through men with crowns. In the year 312 after Christ, a Roman emperor named Constantine painted a sign of Christ on his soldiers' shields before a battle. Later emperors closed the old temples. None of that came from Jesus.
Maybe you were told you had to be on the right team before God could love you. The Father Jesus showed is not the god of one house, one town or one army. He is the one no one had seen, and there is room with him for you, wherever you come from.
Read the full teaching
This is the heart of the third lesson in the series Many gods before and after Jesus. The full teaching tells the whole story of the Kaaba, the battle at Uhud, a hill near Medina, and what the Quran says in its own words.