The Abrahamic Family House and the fragility of coexistence

Last year I visited Abu Dhabi and apart from the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the place I most wanted to
see was the Abrahamic Family House. 

The concept of a compound containing places of worship from all three Abrahamic religions standing side by side fascinated me.

I was raised attending the Catholic Church, so Sunday Mass and Saturday catechism classes, working toward my first Holy Communion and later my confirmation, were fixtures of my childhood. But I
had never set foot inside a mosque or a synagogue.

It was a typically hot day in April when I visited. The heavy humid heat of the Abu Dhabi spring can climb to more than 30°C, so it was a relief to be greeted by the cool air of the visitor pavilion. 

The coolness extended into the houses of worship, thanks to the inspired design of British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye.

The three buildings are of equal stature, size and materiality, deliberately eliminating any sense of hierarchy. They border an elevated landscaped garden, a shared space for gathering and connection. 

Each structure is oriented according to its tradition: the mosque towards Mecca, the church towards the East and the synagogue towards Jerusalem.

The structures are different but the human impulse behind them feels the same. 

The desire to search for meaning beyond our finite existence and to commune with others who share that search. 

I found it especially compelling that the spaces are not just symbolic or aesthetic; they’re active, regularly used places of worship.

According to its website, the Abrahamic Family House “is dedicated to the pursuit of peaceful coexistence for generations to come”, a place that seeks to bridge our common humanity through dialogue and the practice of faith.

But as I explored the compound, I couldn’t help thinking about the sheer amount of conflict the same faiths have been used to justify in the region. And I found myself questioning: Is it really the religions themselves? Or is that too convenient an answer?

History offers easy examples. The Crusades, centuries-old campaigns waged in the name of Christianity to reclaim Jerusalem, left cities burnt and populations massacred. Later, empires rose and fell across this same geography, from Ottoman expansions into Europe to colonial powers carving up the Middle East, with little regard for the people who lived there. Religion was always present but rarely alone.

Then there’s the present, which feels less like history and more like a wound that refuses to close.

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is often framed as ancient and inevitable but so much of it is rooted in the 20th century: the collapse of empires, the creation of Israel in 1948 and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. 

Since then, cycles of war, occupation and resistance have hardened into something that feels permanent. 

In Gaza, even in moments that are supposed to resemble ceasefire, airstrikes and shortages persist and civilians continue to bear the brunt of a conflict they did not choose. More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in recent months alone despite a declared truce, as humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.

Again I wonder: Is this religion? Or is it land, borders and the machinery of the modern state?

Because layered over the conflict is something even larger. 

In February 2026, the US and Israel launched a massive coordinated assault on Iran, striking military infrastructure and leadership in what quickly escalated into a regional war. In just the opening phase, nearly 900 strikes were carried out, killing more than a thousand people and triggering waves of retaliation across the Middle East. 

Iran responded with missiles and drones. The conflict has since drawn in other actors, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Houthi forces in Yemen, threatening global trade routes and widening the scope of destruction.

It’s tempting to see this, too, through a religious lens. Israel versus an Islamic republic, alliances framed in civilisational terms. But the closer you look, the more familiar the underlying motives appear: Western hubris, regional dominance and political gamesmanship.

Maybe religion is less the cause and more the language through which older, more human instincts are expressed. Power. Fear. Territory. The need to belong and the equally strong need to define who does not.

Which is it? A force for division or a framework for coexistence?

Standing in that carefully balanced space in Abu Dhabi, it was possible, if only for a moment, to believe in the framework for coexistence. But outside its walls, the evidence feels overwhelming in the other direction. Cities reduced to rubble. Families displaced. 

A death toll that continues to climb across multiple fronts, numbers that risk becoming abstract precisely because they’re so large.

And that’s where the uncertainty settles in. Not in the past, where we can trace causes and assign meaning but in the present where bombs are falling, where alliances harden and where the line between faith
and power becomes almost impossible to distinguish.

Maybe that is the uncomfortable truth the Abrahamic Family House cannot resolve, only quietly resist: that the same human capacity that builds spaces of coexistence is also capable of sustaining conflict. 

And for now, both realities exist side by side.