The Mother of the Living
“Eve’s Tomb” the sign read in Arabic script. I hadn’t even known that this place existed until that day, but my friends wanted to visit so I was curious what it would be like. Not that I was convinced that Eve, the Mother of all the living was buried there, but I hoped to find out why they thought this was true and how they revered this mother in such a male-dominated culture. We walked up to the massive wooden gates opening the way through the towering walls surrounding the sacred area. Our group consisted of two men and three women. As we confidently strode through the entrance into the cool shade of the covered area inside, three security guards rushed up to us yelling at us to stop. They weren’t violent but they were very adamant that we could not come a step further. Turns out that our co-ed group had broken a law that exists across the land - no women (of any faith) are allowed in cemeteries or burial sites. The guards went on to tell us that the men were welcome to come in