Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Abraham

Firestone, Reuven, "Abraham" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Some two hundred and forty-five verses in twenty-five sūras of the Qurʾān make reference to Abraham (Ibrāhīm), the progenitor of the nation of Israel (q.v.). Among biblical figures, only Moses (q.v.) receives more attention and in the Qurʾān Abraham and Moses are the sole prophets explicitly identified as bearers of scriptures (q 53:36-7; 87:18-9; see book; scripture and the qurʾān). Although the Islamic Abraham shares many characteristics with the figure in the Bible and later Jewish exegetical literature, the Qurʾān especially emphasizes his role as a precursor of Muḥammad and the establisher of the pilgrimage rites in Mecca (see pilgrimage).

Abraham in the Qurʾān

The references to Abraham in the Qurʾān take a number of different forms and appear in a wide variety of contexts. Several descriptive appellations are applied to him. He is deemed «very truthful» (ṣiddīq, q 19:41) and «kind and gracious» (ḥalīm, q 9:114; 11:75). He is one who «paid his debt in full» (alladhī waffā, q 53:37). His qurʾānic appellation as [God’s] friend (khalīl) in q 4:125 formed the basis of his honorific title «Friend of God» (khalīl Allāh) in the Islamic tradition. (The city of Hebron, traditionally regarded as the site of his grave, takes its Arabic name «al-Khalīl» from this honorific). Abraham is also called « ḥanīf» (q.v.), usually translated as «upright» or "pure of faith, " in eight places (q 2:135; 3:67, 95; 4:125; 6:79, 161; 16:120, 123). The term appears elsewhere only twice, in both cases referring to Muḥammad (q 10:105; 30:30), and in the first of these he is called " ḥanīf and not a polytheist, " a phrase also several times applied to Abraham. It is to be assumed that Muḥammad’s connection to this respected figure served to enhance his religious authorityand prestige among those Arabs familiar with the Bible. The depiction of Abraham as ḥanīf, frequently in association with the phrase «religion of Abraham» (millat Ibrāhīm, q 2:130, 135; 3:95; 4:125; 6:161; 12:38; 16:123; 22:78), has suggested to Muslim believers and Western scholars alike that an indigenous Abrahamic monotheism may have existed in Arabia prior to Muḥammad’s mission.

Many Abrahamic references in the Qurʾān parallel biblical material. Abraham leaves his father and people and encounters God in a new land where he will raise his family (q 19:48-9; 21:71; 29:26; 37:83-101; cf. Gen 12:1-5). He establishes a sacred shrine, the House of God (q 2:125-7; cf. Gen 12:6-8, 13:18). He mildly challenges God and is then told to cut open or divide birds (q 2:260; cf. Gen 15:1-10). He is associated with a covenant (q.v.) with God (q 2:124-5; 33:7; cf. Gen 17:1-14). He is visited by divine messengers who announce the forthcoming birth of a son to him and his wife, and who then proceed to destroy the people of Lot (q.v.; q 11:69-76; 15:51-9; 29:31; 51:24-30; cf. Gen 18:1-20). He argues with God over the fate of the people of Lot (q 11:74-6; cf. Gen 18:20-33). He takes his son and attempts to offer him as a sacrifice, but is released from the task by God (q 37:99-111; cf. Gen 22:1-19). He is God’s friend (q 4:126; cf. Is 41:8; 2 Ch 20:7).

Two of these parallels find expression in sustained narrative form. The visit of the divine messengers is mentioned in four qurʾānic loci, a repetition which attests to its importance. The messengers — or a guest — come to Abraham and he hospitably offers them a calf to eat. Yet Abraham fears these strangers because, according to q 11:70, they eat nothing. In some earlier Jewish interpretive literature, the messengers also do not eat — despite the statement in Gen 18:8 that they did — because angels (q.v.) were believed neither to eat nor to have any other human bodily functions (TB Ḥagigah 16a; Targum Yerushalmi, Gen 18:8; Genesis Rabba 48:14). The post-biblical Jewish motif of these guests not eating Abraham’s food was retained in the qurʾānic version, but the Jewish explanation for this was not. The qurʾānic Abraham therefore interprets their refusal to eat as a sign of hostility, causing him to fear for his safety until he is assured by them that they have come to announce the happy news of a future son (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xiv, 70-1). His unnamed wife laughs (ḍaḥikat, q 11:71) or strikes her head in unbelief (q 51:29), but since the Hebrew play on words between laugh (ṣaḥoq) and Isaac (Yiṣḥāq, see isaac) is not retained in Arabic, Muslim commentators offer a series of alternative explanations for her behavior (Firestone, Journeys, 52-9).

Many motifs in the qurʾānic account (q 37:99-111) and Islamic exegesis of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son (dhabīḥ) find parallels in Jewish tradition (Firestone, Journeys, 105-34), although in the Qurʾān the son knows beforehand of his father’s intention and actually encourages him to perform the deed. Of greatest interest to the Muslim commentators was the identity of the son, who is not named in the Qurʾān. Some identified him, as the Bible does, as Isaac, Abraham’s son by his wife Sarah; although others wished to cast the progenitor of the Arabs, Ishmael (q.v.), his son by Sarah’s handmaiden Hagar, in this central role. Muslim interpreters read the explicit reference to Isaac in q 37:112 in ways that support Ishmael as well as Isaac as the intended sacrifice.

The most oft-repeated Abrahamic narrative in the Qurʾān, the story of his smashing the pagan idols (q 6:74-84; 19:41-50; 21:51-73; 26:69-86; 29:16-27; 37:83-98; 43:26-7; 60:4), has no biblical parallel, but is well known in Jewish exegetical literature (e.g. Genesis Rabba 38:13; TB Pesaḥim 118a, ʿEruvin 53a; pre 26). The various qurʾānic versions tend to emphasize different issues for which parallels can be found in Jewish sources. In q 6:74, Abraham calls his father by the name Āzar (q.v.). q 6:75-9 describes Abraham’s discovery of monotheism through logical reflection and the empirical observation of nature, a story of great antiquity (Ginzberg, Legends, v, 210, n. 16). Despite his father’s hostility towards him (q 19:46), Abraham prays that he be forgiven for his sin of worshipping idols (q 9:113-4; 14:41; 19:47; 26:86; 60:4). This aspect of the legend may have held particular poignancy for Muḥammad, who, according to tradition, wished to do the same for his idolatrous ancestors (Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xiii, 40-53). Abraham destroys his father’s idols and those of his compatriots (q 21:57-8; 37:93; see idolatry and idolaters). For this he is sentenced to be burnt alive, but God rescues him (q 21:68-9; 29:24; 37:97-8). He also endures further trials in which he prevails (q 2:124; 37:106; cf. Avot 5:3, with details provided in the midrash and elsewhere).

One series of Abrahamic references in the Qurʾān finds no parallel in either the Bible or later Jewish traditions. These associate Abraham, and often Ishmael, with the building of the Kaʿba (q.v.), with Arabian cultic practice and with terminology of Islamic religious conceptions. Abraham and Ishmael raise up the foundations of the House and entreat God to keep them and their descendants forever a «nation in submission to You» and to show them the proper pilgrimage rituals (manāsik, q 2:127-8). Elsewhere, Abraham prays for the safety of the territory around the Kaʿba and prays for those of his descendants whom he settled in Mecca to engage in regular prayers and remain secure (q 14:35-7). God settles Abraham at the House or makes the area habitable and enjoins him (or, perhaps, Muḥammad) to an-nounce officially the pilgrimage to Mecca (q 22:26-7). Abraham and Ishmael are ordered to render the Kaʿba pure for the proper monotheistic pilgrimage ritual of circumambulation and for kneeling and prostration there in prayer (q 2:125). The famous place of prayer, the Place of Abraham (q.v.; q 2:125; 3:96-7), is situated near the Kaʿba.

For Jews Abraham’s special covenantal relationship with God established him as the authenticator and founder of Judaism. It was natural that when Christianity established itself as related to but independent of Judaism, Christians appropriated the figure of Abraham as a means of legitimating their religion (Rom 4:9-25; 9:7-9; Ga 4:21-31). Similarly, Abraham’s role in the Qurʾān includes a related but more polemical aspect as he appears as neither a Jew nor a Christian but as a ḥanīf muslim (q 3:65-70; cf. 2:140). Like the New Testament citations, the Qurʾān stipulates that the divine covenant established with Abraham does not automatically include all of his progeny (q 2:124; 4:54-5; 37:113; 57:26). Inasmuch as the religion of Muḥammad is the religion of Abraham (q 22:78), those Jews who reject Muḥammad and the religion he brings are, in fact, rejecting their own religion. The Jews further deny the religious sanctity of Mecca, despite Abraham’s intimate association with it (q 3:95-8).

It is worth noting that the inconsistent qurʾānic references to Abraham’s descendants have been an issue of some interest to Western scholars. Abraham is told by God’s messengers that he will be the father of an unnamed son in q 15:53; 37:101; 51:28. In q 37:112 the son is named Isaac. A number of verses list Isaac and Isaac’s son Jacob (q.v.) together as if they were both sons of Abraham (q 6:84; 11:71; 19:49; 21:72; 29:27). In a series of quite different passages, Ishmael is listed as if he had no familial connection to Abraham (q 6:86; 19:54-5; 21:85; 38:48). The idiomatic phrase, "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, " is employed in two passages (q 12:38; 38:45; cf. q 2:132), while in yet another idiom, "Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the tribes, " is used (q 2:136, 140; 3:84; 4:163). Already in the nineteenth century C.S. Hurgronje(Het Mekkaansche Feest) theorized that this material reflects some confusion over the exact relationship between Abraham and his descendants, claiming that these verses date from the Meccan period of revelations, i.e. before Muḥammad came into regular contact with Jews or Christians. The verses that reproduce the biblical genealogy were held to date from Muḥammad’s days in Medina, when he apparently had ongoing contact with the local Jewish community.

The narrative Abraham cycle

Reports from the genres of ḥadīth, prophetic biography, qurʾānic exegesis and universal histories expand the spare qurʾānic material on Abraham. Linked together, this interpretive literature forms a full narrative cycle in three parts. The first takes place in Mesopotamia, the land of Abraham’s birth; the second in the vicinity of Jerusalem (q.v.) and the third in Mecca (q.v.) and its environs. These three lands represent a hierarchy of sanctity culminating with the most sacred place and its holy sites. All of this material can properly be considered scriptural exegesis, although some of it indirectly interprets biblical scripture in addition to the Qurʾān by supplementing the qurʾānic revelation with material deriving from a biblicist milieu («biblicist» referring to Jewish or Christian, whether «orthodox» or syncretistic in practice and belief). Given the great variety in the literature, only a representative account can be given here.

Part one begins with the astrological por-tents of Abraham’s impending birth in Mesopotamia, often associated with Kūthā in southern Iraq. Nimrod (q.v.) is the king and he attempts to prevent the birth of his nemesis through a variety of stratagems, all of which fail. Abraham’s infancy and youth are marked by miraculous signs (q.v.) and events. While still a boy, he determines through his natural intelligence and perspicacity that neither idols nor even the sun or moon could possibly be divine (q 6:75-9). Soon after, he argues against the idolatry of his father and his people and a variety of traditions weave together one or more of the qurʾānic renderings of Abraham destroying his father’s idols. In some versions of the story, Abraham destroys the idols of king Nimrod as well. Consequently, he is to be burned alive but instead is miraculously saved from the flames. The extra-qurʾānic sources add many details. Nimrod, for instance, dies when God causes a gnat to fly through his nose into his head and torture him to death. Meanwhile, Abraham marries Sarah who is sometimes described as the daughter of the king of Haran (thus explaining the Hebrew meaning of sārāh, «princess»).

While traveling, Abraham encounters a tyrant, king or pharaoh who becomes enamored of Sarah’s stunning beauty. Asked about her, Abraham informs him that she is his sister and she is taken from him. The tyrant reaches for her when they are in his chambers, but his hand, or entire body, is miraculously stricken, sometimes repeatedly as he continually attempts to touch her. He returns her to Abraham, along with Hagar, who according to some accounts had been given to him as compensation. Hagar later gives birth to Ishmael, but the references to Ishmael’s birth are inconsistent and do not seem to reflect a coherent narrative tradition. Abraham settles in Sabaʿ near Jerusalem where he digs a well (see well and springs) and estab-lishes a place of prayer. The people in the area wrong him, so he moves away and the well immediately dries up. After this the people pursue him to beg forgiveness. Abraham gives them seven goats and tells them that when they are brought to the well it will provide water, thus providing a narrative explanation for the etiology of the name of the place Beer-Sheba (biʾr sabaʿ or «well of the seven [goats]»).

After these events, the scene is transferred to Mecca. Sarah’s jealousy toward Hagar after the birth of Ishmael forces Abraham to separate the two women. He personally brings Hagar and Ishmael to Mecca, where he places them in the shade of a thorn tree and entrusts them to God’s mercy. Afterwards he returns to his family in Syria/ Palestine. With no water in Mecca, Hagar cannot provide for her infant son, who begins to show signs of distress. She leaves him and desperately searches for water by running between the nearby hills of al-Ṣafā (q.v.) and al-Marwa (q.v.), an action that sets the precedent for the «running ritual» (saʿy) of the pilgrimage. When all hope seems lost, they are rescued by an angel, sometimes identified as Gabriel, who scratches the ground to bring forth water from what would become the famous Zamzam spring in Mecca. Abraham does not neglect his son in Mecca, but comes to see him three times, although Ishmael is away during the first two visits. On his first attempt to see his son, Abraham encounters Ishmael’s inhospitable and unfriendly wife. He gives her a coded message to pass on to his son to the effect that she is not acceptable. Ishmael dutifully divorces her and remarries. On Abraham’s second visit he finds a hospitable and respectful wife. With another coded message, he lets his son know he approves of her. During this visit, according to some accounts, Abraham stands on a rock which would become known as the Place of Abraham, leaving his footprint. On his third visit, Abraham finds Ishmael at home and together, in response to God’s command, they build the Kaʿba. Abraham then calls all humanity to perform the pilgrimage to God’s House.

In a distinctly different version of the Meccan sequence attributed to the Prophet’s son-in-law and the eventual caliph ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (q.v.; d. 40/661), Abraham travels to Mecca with Hagar and Ishmael in response to God’s command to establish the Kaʿba. They are guided by a supernatural being called the «sechina» (q.v.) or by a magic cloud that leads them to the exact location for the structure. In some accounts, Abraham and Ishmael discover the ancient foundations of a Kaʿba originally established for Adam which God had removed so as to prevent its desecration by the great Noachian flood. In a series of traditions without any consistent attribution or sequence of events, Abraham makes the first paradigmatic pilgrimage.

The qurʾānic rendering of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son is embellished considerably in the exegetical literature. Its relative placement within the full Abraham cycle varies in the different versions, as does the scene of the action, in some accounts occurring in Syria and in others in Arabia. In some renderings of the legend, Abraham and his family are confronted by Satan or a devil (q.v.), occasionally in the form of an old man. He attempts to convince them through appeals to logic and mercy to refrain from carrying out God’s command. In some versions, Satan appears to Abraham at the location of various ritual stops of the Meccan pilgrimage and Abraham finally drives him away by casting stones at him near the three stone pillars (sing. jamra) where to this day stones are thrown as part of the pilgrimage.

Abraham’s son — whose identity is contested by the qurʾānic commentators — is informed that he will be sacrificed. In a touching response, he asks his father to tie him tightly so that he will not squirm, to draw back his clothes so they will not be soiled by his blood and to return his shirt to his mother so as to offer her comfort. Abraham kisses his son and they soak the ground with their tears. Abraham actually draws the knife across his son’s throat, but discovers that it will not cut because it has miraculously reversed in his hand to its dull side. Or he finds that an impenetrable sheet of copper has suddenly formed around his son’s neck. In some versions, Abraham tries repeatedly to fulfill the divine command, but is thwarted each time by these miracles. He finally redeems his son by sacrificing a ram, sometimes identified as the very one that was successfully offered to God in sacrifice by Abel (see cain and abel) and kept in heaven for this purpose.

The Muslim exegetes of the first two Islamic centuries differed about which of his sons Abraham was commanded to sacrifice. They approached the question in different ways and no consensus prevailed. The historian al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) succinctly stated the geographical argument: «If the sacrifice occurred in the Hejaz, it was Ishmael, because Isaac never entered the Hejaz. If the sacrifice took place in Syria [i.e. Jerusalem], then it was Isaac because Ishmael did not enter Syria after he was taken from there» (Murūj, i, 58). Nevertheless, some Shīʿī commentators claimed that Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac in Mecca while on the pilgrimage. Muslim thinkers, like their Jewish and Christian counterparts, came to believe that Abraham’s willingness and that of his son to undergo the sacrifice brought blessings on them and their descendants. If Isaac were the intended victim, the merit would natu-rally accrue to his progeny, the Jews or Christians; if Ishmael, then to the Arabs. Those arguing in favor of Ishmael suggest that Isaac is an interpolation of the Jews and Christians: «[The People of the Book (q.v.)] forced this understanding because Isaac is their father while Ishmael is the father of the Arabs» (Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, ad q 37:101). A quantitative study of the early exegetical literature suggests that most qurʾānic exegetes until about the middle of the second/ninth century, regarded Isaac as the intended victim, but later the choice of Ishmael gained favor and this has prevailed until the present day (R. Firestone, Abraham’s son). See also prophets and prophethood .

Bibliography

Primary

• Babylonian Talmud (TB)
• Genesis Rabba, traditional ed., chaps. 39-56, trans. H. Freedman, Genesis Rabba, London 1983, i, 313—503
• L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 7 vols., Philadelphia 1968, i, 185—286; v, 207-55
• Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr
• Ibn Qutayba, Maʿārif, 19-20
• Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 124-47, trans. W. Thackston, The tales of the prophets of al-Kisaʾi, Boston 1978, 131-57
• Masʿūdī, Murūj, 4 vols., Beirut 1385/1965-1385/1966
• Pirqey Rabbi Eliʿezer (PRE), traditional ed., chaps. 24-31, trans. G. Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, New York 1916, 174—230
• Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, ed. A.S. ʿAlī et al.
• id., Taʾrīkh, i, 253—325, trans. W. Brinner, History of al-Ṭabarī, ii. Prophets and patriarchs, Albany 1987, ii, 49-111
• Targum Yerushalmi

Secondary

• R. Dagorn, La geste d’Ismael, Paris 1981
• R. Dozy, Die Israeliten zu Mekka, Leipzig 1864
• R. Firestone, Abraham’s association with the Meccan sanctuary and the pilgrimage in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods, in Museon 104 (1991), 365-93
• id., Abraham’s son as the intended sacrifice, in jss 89 (1989), 95-131
• id., Journeys in holy lands. The evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael legends, Albany 1990
• G.R. Hawting, The origins of the Muslim sanctuary at Mecca, in G.H.A. Juynboll (ed.), Studies on the first century of Islamic society, Carbondale 1982, 23-47
• C.S. Hurgronje, Het Mekkaansche feest, Leiden 1880
• M.J. Kister, A bag of meat, in bsoas 33 (1970), 267-75
• id., Call yourselves by graceful names, in M.J. Kister, Lectures in memory of Professor Martin M. Plessner, Jerusalem 1975, 3-25
• id., al-Ḥīra, in Arabica 15 (1968), 143-69
• Y. Moubarac, Abraham dans le Coran, Paris 1958
• R. Paret, Ibrāhīm, in ei2, iii, 980-1
• A. Rippin, Raḥmān and the Ḥanīfs, in W.B. Hallaq and D.P. Little (eds.), Islamic studies presented to Charles J. Adams, Leiden 1991
• U. Rubin, Ḥanīfiyya and Kaʿba, in jsai 13 (1990), 85-112
• id., The Kaʿba, in jsai 8 (1986), 97-131
• J. Wansbrough, qs