Book excerpt: More than ever before, today's news brings Middle Eastern wars into our homes as the animosity between the Arab world and Israel escalates. "Will they ever have peace?" everyone asks. Attempting to answer that question, "Heirs of Abraham" is a historical family saga stretching over a time span of almost four thousand years. It follows the lives of the Biblical nomad Abraham, who is the foundation of the world's three great religions-Islam, Judaism, and, indirectly, Christianity-and his two sons. There is Ishmael, born of an Egyptian slave whose descendants are today's Arabs. And there is Isaac, son of Abraham's beloved wife and the Jews' patriarch. Set against the backdrops of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel-of wars and famines, goat-haired tents and kings' palaces-this is a saga of real people whose actions will have an everlasting effect on all future generations and worlds. First, there is Abraham, who struggles with faith, power, love and cowardice. There are his women-Sarah, the wife, and Hagar, the slave-whose jealous love for him and hatred of each other never die. Finally, there are the two brothers who have been pitted against each other for thousands of years in the age-old battle for the land now known as the State of Israel. Yet most of all, "Heirs of Abraham," faithfully following the Holy Bible's accounting in Genesis, is a dramatic reminder of God's love for all people.