الخلیل
Just outside al-Khalil stands the tree known as Balutat Ibrahim, the oak of Prophet Ibrahim (AS). It marks the tradition of Mamre: the place where he pitched…
Just outside al-Khalil stands the tree known as Balutat Ibrahim, the oak of Prophet Ibrahim (AS). It marks the tradition of Mamre: the place where he pitched his tent, and where he received the honoured guests who came to him with the news of a son and of the fate of the people of Nabi Lut (AS). The hospitality of Prophet Ibrahim Prophet Ibrahim (AS) was born in Iraq and migrated to the lands of Palestine, and this open country north of al-Khalil is where tradition places his encampment. The guests who came to him were received without question, and it is his hospitality, offered before he knew who they were, that the place is remembered for. Sayyidah Sarah was with him, and it was to her that the news of a son was given. The story sits alongside the graves in the city below, and pilgrims have long read the two places together. Two sites, one tradition The ancient site of Mamre, Ramat al-Khalil, lies a short distance north and was the point of pilgrimage recorded by writers from the Roman period until the middle of the twelfth century. After that the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim's (AS) oak attached itself to the tree standing today, about two kilometres to the southwest. That ground was bought in 1868 by the Russian Orthodox Church, which built a monastery beside it. The ancient trunk has stood without leaf since 1996 and fell in 2019, but a shoot rising from its root has been tended since the late 1990s, and the place continues to be visited.