information regarding the history of religions. The most important
feature of the Ebla tablets, discovered by archaeologists in 1975 and
which have been the subject of much research and debate ever since, is
that they contain the names of three prophets referred to in holy
scriptures.
The discovery after thousands of years of the Ebla tablets and the
information they contain is extremely important from the point of view
of clarifying the geographical location ofsocieties revealed in the
Qur'an.
Around 2500 BC, Ebla was a kingdom coveringan area that included the
Syrian capital Damascus and south-eastTurkey. This kingdom reached a
cultural and economic peak but later,as happened to a great many
civilizations, it disappeared from the stage of history. It was
apparent from the records that were kept that the Kingdom of Eblawas a
major cultural andcommercial center of thetime. (1) The people of Ebla
possessed a civilization that established state archives, built
libraries and recorded commercial contracts in written form. They even
had their own language,known as Eblaite.
The History of Buried Religions
The true importance of the Kingdom of Ebla, regarded as a great
success for classical archaeology when first discovered in 1975, came
to light with the finding of some 20,000 cuneiform tablets and
fragments. This archive was four times greater than all the cuneiform
texts known to archaeologists over the last 3,000 years.
When the language usedin the tablets was deciphered by the Italian
Giovanni Pettinato, an epigrapherfrom the University of Rome, the
scale of their importance was better understood. As a result of this,
the finding of theKingdom of Ebla and thismagnificent state archive
became a matternot just of archaeological interest, but one of
interest to religious circles, too. That was because as wellas the
names Michael (Mi-ka-il) and Talut (Sa-u-lum), who struggled alongside
the Prophet David, they also contained the names of prophets mentioned
in the three holy books: The Prophet Abraham (Ab-ra-mu), the Prophet
David (Da-u-dum) and the Prophet Ishamel (Ish-ma-il). (2)
The Importance of the Names on the Ebla Tablets
The names of the prophets identified in the Ebla tablets are of the
greatest importance as this was the first time that they had been
encountered in historical documents of such age. This information,
dating backto 1500 years before the Torah, was most striking.The
appearance in the tablets of the name of the Prophet Abraham recorded
that the Prophet Abraham and the religion brought by him had existed
before the Torah.
Historians analyzed the Ebla tablets from this perspective, and this
major discovery regarding the Prophet Abraham and his missionbecame
the subject of research with regard to the history of religions. David
Noel Freedman, anAmerican archaeologist and researcher into the
history of religions, reported, based on his studies, the names of
such prophets as Abraham and Ishmael in the tablets. (3)
Other Names in the Tablets
As stated above the names in the tablets were those of prophets
referred to in the three holy books, and the tablets were far older
than the Torah. In addition to these names there were also other
subjects and place names in the tablets, from which it can be seen
that the Eblaites were very successful traders. The names Sinai,Gaza
and Jerusalem, not too distant from Ebla, also appeared in the texts,
showing that the Eblaites enjoyed commercial and cultural links with
these places. (4)
One important detail seen in the tablets was the names of the areas of
Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people of Lot lived. It is known that
Sodom and Gomorrah was a region on the shore of the DeadSea where the
people of Lot lived and where the Prophet Lot communicated his message
and called people to live by religious moral values. Inaddition to
these two names, that of the city ofIram, which appears in the verses
of the Qur'an, is also among those in the Ebla tablets.
The most noteworthy aspect of these names is that apart from in the
texts communicated by the prophets, they had never before appeared in
any other text. This is important documentary evidence showing that
reports of the prophets who communicated the message of the one true
religion at that time had reached those areas. In an article in
Reader's Digest magazine it was recorded that that there had been a
change in the Eblaites' religion during the reign of King Ebrum and
that people had begun to add prefixes to their names in order to exalt
the name of Almighty God.
God's Promise Is True…
The history of Ebla and the Ebla tablets which came to light after
some 4,500 years actually point to one major truth:God sent messengers
to Ebla, as He did to every community, and these called their peoples
to the true religion.
Some people adhered tothe religion that came tothem and thus attained
the true path, while others opposed the message of the prophetsand
preferred a wicked life. God, Lord of the heavens, the earth, and all
that lies between, reveals this fact in the Qur'an:
We sent a Messenger among every people saying: "Worship God and keep
clear of all false deities." Among them were some whom God guided but
others received the misguidance they deserved. Travel about the earth
and see the final fate of the deniers. (Qur'an, 16: 36)
References
1) "Ebla", Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopaedia, © 1995 Funk & Wagnalls
Corporation, Infopedia 2.0, SoftKey Multimedia Inc.
2) Howard La Fay, "Ebla: Splendour of an Unknown Empire," National
Geographic Magazine, December 1978, p. 736; C. Bermant and M.
Weitzman, Ebla: A Revelation in Archaeology, Times Books, 1979,
Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, Great Britain, pp. 184.
3) Bilim ve Teknik magazine (Science and Technology), No. 118,
September 1977 and No. 131October 1978
4) For detailed information, please see Harun Yahya's Miracles of the Qur'an.
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