Hebron in the context of "Beit Awwa"

The holiest sites in Islam are located in the Middle East. While the significance of most places typically varies depending on the Islamic sect, there is a consensus across all mainstream branches of the religion that affirms three cities as having the highest degree of holiness, in descending order: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Mecca's Al-Masjid al-Haram (including the Kaaba), Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, and Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque are all revered by Muslims as sites of great importance.

After the consensus on the first three sites as well as further sites associated with the family of Muhammad, there is a divergence between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims on the designation of additional holy sites. Even within each sect, there are disputes as to whether any uniquely holy cities exist apart from the aforementioned three. For Sunnis that argue that there are, sites associated with the Rashidun, other Companions of Muhammad, and Biblical prophets often hold a high level of significance (see holiest sites in Sunni Islam). In particular, the Umayyad Mosque in the city of Damascus and the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron have held interchangeable significance as the fourth and fifth-holiest Islamic sites, respectively, for many Sunni Muslims. For Shias, sites associated with the Imamah hold a high level of significance (see holiest sites in Shia Islam).

Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the spiritual progenitor of all believers, whether Jewish or non-Jewish; and in Islam, he is a link in the chain of Islamic prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad. Abraham is also revered in other Abrahamic religions such as the Baháʼí Faith and the Druze faith.

The story of the life of Abraham, as told in the narrative of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, revolves around the themes of posterity and land. He is said to have been called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land of Canaan, which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. This promise is subsequently inherited by Isaac, Abraham's son by his wife Sarah, while Isaac's half-brother Ishmael is also promised that he will be the founder of a great nation. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah's grave, thus establishing his right to the land; and, in the second generation, his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin to earn his parents' approval. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons; but, on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives "all Abraham's goods" while the other sons receive only "gifts".

The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills (Hebrew: הרי יהודה, romanized: Harei Yehuda) or the Hebron Hills (Arabic: تلال الخليل, romanized: Tilāl Al-ḵalīl or Arabic: جبال الخليل, romanized: Jibāl Al-ḵalīl, lit. 'Hebron mountains',) are a mountain range in the West Bank and Israel where Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and several other biblical sites are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,026 metres (3,366 ft). The Judean Mountains can be divided into a number of sub-regions, including the Mount Hebron ridge, the Jerusalem ridge and the Judean slopes.

The Judaean Mountains formed the heartland of the Kingdom of Judah (930–586 BCE), where the earliest Jewish settlements emerged, and from which Jews are originally descended.

The Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem (Ottoman Turkish: قُدس شَرِيف مُتَصَرِّفلغى, Kudüs-i Şerif Mutasarrıflığı; Arabic: متصرفية القدس الشريف, Mutaṣarrifiyyat al-quds aš-šarīf, French: Moutassarifat de Jérusalem), also known as the Sanjak of Jerusalem, was a district in Ottoman Syria with special administrative status established in 1872. The district encompassed Jerusalem as well as Hebron, Jaffa, Gaza and Beersheba. Many documents during the Late Ottoman period refer to the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem as Palestine; one such describes Palestine as including the Sanjak of Nablus and Sanjak of Akka (Acre) as well, more in line with European usage. It was the seventh most heavily populated region of the Ottoman Empire's 36 provinces.

The district was separated from the Damascus Eyalet and placed directly under the supervision of the Ottoman central government in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1841, and formally created as an independent province in 1872 by Grand Vizier Mahmud Nedim Pasha. Scholars provide a variety of reasons for the separation, including increased European interest in the region, and strengthening of the southern border of the Empire against the Khedivate of Egypt. Initially, the Mutasarrifate of Acre and Mutasarrifate of Nablus were combined with the province of Jerusalem, with the combined province being referred to in the register of the court of Jerusalem as the "Jerusalem Eyalet", and referred to by the British consul as the creation of "Palestine into a separate eyalet". After less than two months, the sanjaks of Nablus and Acre were separated and added to the Vilayet of Beirut, leaving just the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. In 1906, the Kaza of Nazareth was added to the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate as an exclave, primarily in order to allow the issuance of a single tourist permit to Christian travellers.

Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother Esau, Jacob's paternal grandparents are Abraham and Sarah and his maternal grandfather is Bethuel, whose wife is not mentioned. He is said to have bought Esau's birthright and, with his mother's help, deceived his aging father to bless him instead of Esau. Then, following a severe drought in his homeland Canaan, Jacob and his descendants migrated to neighbouring Egypt through the efforts of his son Joseph, who had become a confidant of the pharaoh. After dying in Egypt at the age of 147, he is supposed to have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.

Per the Hebrew Bible, Jacob's progeny were beget by four women: his wives (and maternal cousins) Leah and Rachel; and his concubines Bilhah and Zilpah. His sons were, in order of their birth: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. He also had a daughter named Dinah, born to his first wife Leah. The descendants of Jacob's sons were collectively known as the Israelites, with each son being the forefather of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, of whom all but the Tribe of Levi were allotted territory in the Land of Israel. The Genesis narrative also states that Jacob displayed favoritism among his wives and children, preferring Rachel and her sons Joseph and Benjamin to the rest—culminating in Joseph's older brothers selling him into slavery out of resentment.

The Yishuv (Hebrew: ישוב, lit. 'settlement'), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (Hebrew: הישוב העברי, lit. 'the Hebrew settlement'), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el (lit. 'the Jewish Settlement in the Land of Israel') was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 25,000 Jews living in that region, and continued to be used until 1948, by which time there were some 630,000 Jews there. The term is still in use to denote the pre-1948 Jewish residents in Palestine, corresponding to the southern part of Ottoman Syria until 1918, OETA South in 1917–1920, and Mandatory Palestine in 1920–1948.

A distinction is sometimes drawn between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv. The Old Yishuv refers to all the Jews living in Palestine before the first Zionist immigration wave (aliyah) of 1882, and to their descendants until 1948. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. There were smaller communities in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, and until 1799 in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah and lived off charity (halukka), donated by Jews in the Diaspora.

Palestinian Arabic or simply Palestinian is a dialect continuum of mutually-intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by Palestinians, indigenous to the Palestine region, which includes the states of Palestine, and Israel. It is also spoken by the Palestinian diaspora.

The Arabic dialects spoken in the region of Palestine and Transjordan do not form a homogeneous linguistic unit; rather, they encompass a diverse range of dialects influenced by geographical, historical, and socioeconomic factors. Comparative studies of Arabic dialects indicate that Palestinian Arabic is among the closest dialects to Modern Standard Arabic, particularly the dialect spoken in the Gaza Strip. Additional distinctions can be made within Palestinian Arabic, such as the dialects spoken in the northern West Bank and the Hebron area, which exhibit similarities to those spoken by descendants of Palestinian refugees.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah (שֵׁבֶט יְהוּדָה‎, Shevet Yehudah) was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was one of the tribes to take its place in Judea, occupying its southern part. Jesse and his sons, including King David, belonged to this tribe.

Judah played a central role in the Deuteronomistic history, which encompasses the books of Deuteronomy through II Kings. After the death of King Solomon, the Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Benjamin, the Tribe of Dan, and the Levites formed the Southern Kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem and Hebron as its capital. The kingdom lasted until its conquest by Babylon in c. 586 BCE.

Nahal Hever (Hebrew: נחל חבר) or Wadi al-Khabat (Arabic) is an intermittent stream (wadi) in the Judean Desert, that flows through the West Bank and Israel, from the area of Yatta to the Dead Sea. The Hebrew name is derived from "Hevron", the Hebrew name of the city of Hebron. The stream has a few waterfalls, the tallest one having a drop of over 140 metres (460 ft).

Both Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims agree on the three holiest sites in Islam being, respectively, the Masjid al-Haram (including the Kaaba), in Mecca; the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, in Medina; and Al-Masjid al-Aqsa, in Jerusalem.

Both the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron have often been considered the fourth-holiest site in Islam.