929 Project: Genesis 16 – Genesis 16 from an Islamic viewpoint

From Samir Assi (“Sheikh Samir Assi is a leading Muslim cleric the imam and central preacher of the El-Jazzar Mosque, the main mosque of Acre”) comes this 929 contribution:

Abraham Father of Us All

A Muslim view of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael

We Muslims revere the Prophet Abraham: “Ibrahim Abuna,” Abraham our Father. For us, he is the father of all prophets. For that reason we mention his name in all five daily prayers. As everyone knows, he was born and lived much of his life in present-day Iraq, and called to cease the worship of statues and stars, and believe solely in the one God.

Nimrod, the king of Iraq, commanded that our Prophet Abraham of blessed memory, be burned, but God saved him from the furnace. King Nimrod released him, and Abraham left Iraq for the holy blessed soil of the Holy Land (Israel-Palestine). His wife Sarah accompanied him on the journey.

From there Abraham went down to Egypt, and there confronted Pharaoh who tried to molest Sarah. God saved Sarah from Pharaoh, who released the two of them, and gave Sarah Hagar as a handmaiden. The three of them then returned to the Holy Land.

Since Abraham was old, and Sarah was beyond child-bearing years, Sarah allowed Abraham to marry Hagar. When Hagar became pregnant and gave birth to a son named Ishmael, Sarah became jealous of Hagar. God commanded Abraham our Father to take Hagar and her son Ishmael to the desert. There he left them, because God wanted to bless Ishmael and make him the leader of a very great nation. Abraham our Father fulfilled God’s wishes. He would visit them frequently there in the desert, concerning himself with their well-being, until he died and was buried in Hebron.

Here is more information about this series; and here is a table of abbreviations and acronyms.  Posts are backdated to match with 929 reading dates.‏