Researchers follow Ebrahim's footsteps

Dubai: Using modern technology and with the help of images provided by Google Earth, two researchers, one British, one Jordanian, are tracking the route that Prophet Ebrahim might have taken.

The two men, Daniel Adamson and Mahmoud Twaissi, are tracing the footsteps of the ancestral patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in the hope that today's people will rediscover the common roots and inspire understanding. And perhaps a new path to peace in the Middle East.

The route starts in Harran, Turkey, and will continue into Syria, down through Jordan, across the river to the West Bank to Hebron, which is believed to be Ebrahim's burial place. The project was conceptualised and studied for years under the auspices of the Global Negotiations Project at Harvard University. "The question was how could one somehow evoke the ancient stories to be a catalyst for coexistence?" Harvard's William Ury told Weekend Review.