Cain and Abel

In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod (נוֹד, 'wandering'), where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.

In the Qur'an, Abel and Cain are known as Hābīl (Arabic: هابيل) and Qābīl (قابيل) respectively. The events of the story in the Qur'an are virtually the same as the Hebrew Bible narrative: Both the brothers were asked to offer up individual sacrifices to God; God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's; out of jealousy, Cain slew Abel – the first ever case of murder committed upon the Earth. In Islam, the story of Cain and Abel serves as an admonition against murder promoting sanctity of human life.

Modern scholarship tends to view the Cain and Abel narrative as a symbolic, etiological tale to explain how agriculture replaced foraging using name puns. (Abel’s name is related to a word for “herder” and Cain’s to a word for “metalsmith.”) Scholars date the story to between 6th century BCE and first decades of the 4th century BCE and note Mesopotamian parallels—especially to Sumerian myth of the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzid.