The biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which was filled by the efforts of talkative preachers who wanted to warn the wicked and to awaken the fear of God in people, can easily be taken for fiction. The story of the two cities destroyed by "fire and gray" for the sinful behavior of their inhabitants is too far-fetched. However, archaeological evidence not only proves the existence of these cities, but perhaps even confirms the biblical story of their terrible death.
The account of Sodom and Gomorrah takes us back to the early days of Jewish history, long before the people of Israel settled in the Promised Land, and even before it was separated into a separate nation. The ancestors of the Jews were semi-nomadic, trading with their neighbors, moving from one area of the Middle East to another in search of new pastures for their herds. Their leader at the time of Sodom and Gomorrah was the patriarch Abraham, revered as a founding father through his son Isaac by all the Jews, and through the other son Ishmael by all the Arabs. Abraham plays a prominent role in both the Old Testament and the Qur'an, where the story of his life is essentially the same. If we literally interpret the biblical chronology, the events described took place around 2100 BC.
Abraham was born in the "Ure of Chaldeans", which is usually considered the Sumerian city of Ure in southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). His family moved from there to Harran (northern Mesopotamia), where his father died. It was then, as the Book of Genesis (12:1-5) says, that God revealed to Abraham his destiny. Abraham was to leave Mesopotamia and settle in Canaan (present-day Palestine): "And I will make a great people of you, and I will bless you, and I will magnify your name; and you will be blessed. Abraham took his wife and Lot's relative along with their family members and went to Canaan. After a short stop in Egypt (while there was a famine in Canaan), Abraham and Lot settled in the south of Canaan and started cattle breeding.
A conflict arose between the shepherds of Abraham and Lot over the right to use the pastures, so Abraham offered to split up. Lot and his family moved further east to the plains on the other side of the Dead Sea (present-day Jordan), spreading out their tents near the town of Sodom. The plain was "irrigated with water as the garden of the Lord, as the land of Egypt" (Genesis 13:10). Nowadays, this area is a barren wasteland with a depressingly hot climate and extremely scarce water resources. But at the time of Lot, there were five thriving cities on the plain. Sodom, Gomorrah, Sevoyim, Adma and Sigor. Driven by five kings, they were powerful and rich enough to attack a coalition of Mesopotamian rulers and defeat them.
According to Genesis, all this had to change in one day. The Bible constantly mentions the "wickedness" of the inhabitants of the five cities, especially Sodom and Gomorrah. The nature of this viciousness, which is usually mistaken for sexual perversion, remains unclear. But among the sins of the Sodomites, inhospitality was one of the first places, and their fall only accelerated due to the abuse of the two angels, whom Lot invited to his house as honorary guests. The inhabitants of Sodom demanded that Lot take them outside and rushed to break the door, but were blinded by the angels, who announced to Lot that God had sent them to punish the city; he must immediately gather his family and seek refuge in the mountains, without looking back in any way.
Lot took his wife and daughters and left the city, which soon became a smoking ruin. His wife is known to have broken the ban, turned around and turned into a salt column. Lot's daughters and their father had found refuge in a mountain cave; they were afraid that they were the only living people in the world.
Then follows one of the colorful, but not entirely decent passages, which are often found in the texts of the Old Testament. Lot's daughters got their father drunk and slept with him one by one; as a result, both of them carried their sons from him. These sons became the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites, the Jordanian tribes, who later became the sworn enemies of the Israelites.
After that we no longer hear of Lot. As for Abraham, he observed the catastrophe from a safe distance from South Palestine. When he looked in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah, "and saw, 'Behold, the smoke rises from the ground like the smoke from the stove. All the cities in the plain were overthrown by an angry God.