Ishmael

The Quran presents Ishmael as a prophet who helped Abraham raise the foundations of the Kaʿba in Mecca. In the Bible, God blesses him to become a great nation, and it is clear that Abraham loves him. Yet, at Sarah’s demand, he is banished to the wilderness. Some midrashim explain this by portraying Ishmael as an idol worshiper or imagining him trying to shoot Isaac with an arrow. But do these interpretations reflect a straightforward reading of Ishmael’s character? And after the expulsion, does he remain an outcast from his family?

Sarah is absent from the biblical account of Isaac’s binding, and there’s no indication that Abraham even discussed God’s command with her. Would she have been an active participant, a faithful supporter, or a grief-stricken mother? Later interpreters filled in her role according to their religious and cultural contexts.

In Genesis 21:9, Sarah sees Ishmael מְצַחֵק metzacheq and tells Abraham to banish the boy. The verb has long been interpreted innocently, as laughing or playing, yet this may not be what it means.

Abraham banishes Ishmael as a lad, and the break between them seems final. To reconcile father and son, Jewish and Islamic traditions tell a story about Abraham going to visit Ishmael and meet his wives. Despite being similar, the two stories are used for different purposes.

Throughout the Bible, “Ishmaelite” is a collective term for nomads living in the wilderness, east of Canaan. Why is their eponymous ancestor Ishmael, Abraham’s exiled son, presented as living in the wilderness region near Egypt, west of Canaan? The answer can be found in the political realities of Persian period Yehud.

Hagar and Sarah are the matriarchs of the Arabs and the Jews in Jewish and Muslim interpretation. In the Bible, the feud between the two women is never mended, but Jewish and Muslim feminist readers have used midrash-style poetry to rewrite the ending of their story, in hope of reconciling the contemporary conflict between their putative descendants.

In the introductory verses of the Akedah (Binding of Isaac), God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s only son, ignoring the existence of Ishmael. Ishmael’s absence has bothered even the earliest readers of the text, but a documentary approach obviates the problem. The key is understanding the relationship between Abraham and Hagar.

The story of the Akedah appears to present Abraham’s actions in a uniformly positive light. However, Isaac’s absence at the end of the story, and Sarah’s death immediately afterwards, suggested to some traditional and modern commentators a criticism of Abraham.

Paul, in the 1^st century C.E., allegorizes the expulsion of Hagar to argue that his rivals should be expelled from the church. Nahmanides, in the 13^th century, uses the same biblical story to explain why Jews of his day are persecuted. The assumption shared in both Judaism and Christianity: The Bible speaks to present-day circumstances.

The literary similarities between the expulsion of Ishmael account and that of the Akedah implies that a trial is taking place.