Abraham, Hagar and Sarah

The Qur'anic account begins with Abraham's search for God within an environment where heavenly bodies and other deities were worshipped.

Consequently there is a conflict in the course of which Abraham decides to give an illustrating lesson to the polytheists in order to make them think.

Abraham leaves his home and his father together with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, praying for forgiveness for his father and wishing him peace. There are several Arab accounts of his travels, and it is interesting that he is said to have travelled on the caravan route along the Western side of the Arab peninsula at least to Southern Hijaz or even Yemen. We also hear about a stay in Egypt including the episode where the king who takes Sarah for Abraham's sister claims her for himself but is kept away from her by a miracle until he understands the real situation. To make up for it, he gives Sarah a slave-girl.

This girl is said to have been a princess who was deeply impressed with Abraham's and Sarah's faith in the One God and volunteered in order to be able to leave the country with them. An indication for such an emigration is her name Hagar ("emigrant") with which she is known.

In the course of time, possibly in connection with Sarah's unfulfilled wish for children, Hagar becomes Abraham's second wife and the mother of his first son Ismail. This is the background of some of the rituals central to Islamic practice. Abraham leaves Hagar and Ismail who still is a baby in a barren valley on the Hijaz-road. Various reasons for this journey are mentioned in the traditions, but the main reason is seen in a command from God which is trustingly followed by Abraham. When the baby becomes thirsty, Hagar starts running between two hills to look for signs of water or help, worried and with prayers. Finally she discoveres in the very place where the baby had kicked his feet a well, and an angel comes to comfort and encourage her. After Abraham's return, that place where God's help was experienced in such a visible manner is marked with a black stone, and the story is remembered whenever people rest at this well and later on, when a settlement has grown around the well, whenever travellers arrive. The settlement started when Hagar and Ismail settled there. At the same time people felt that it was a sacred place. This is reflected in Abraham's long prayer in the Qur'an.

The pilgrimage ritual of running between the two hills of Safa and Marwa is there to remind of the experience of Mother Hagar who runs, worried but trusting in God, to and fro to serch for distant help that she then finds immediately lose to herself. All men and women who perform the pilgrimage until the present day get into the role of their spiritual ancestress and experience how they rune about in life in search of what can nourisch and sustain them while God is with them all along; after that they refresh themselves with water from the well of Zamzam which today gives enough water for millions of pilgrims. Both the story and the ritual were already in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (s) a ne essential part of life in Mecca, self-evident enough not to be retold in the Qur'an once more.

Equally self-evident is the circumcision of boys that goes back to Abraham and Ismail and was and is practiced among all descendants of Abraham. It combines - at least from the Islamic perspective - both hygienic and ritual aspects.

But the pilgrimage rites also refer to other parts of the story of Abraham which, according to Arab tradition, is geographically linked with this place. As a human being who lives completely in God's presence with a pure heart, Abraham is seen as Khalîl Allah, God's Friend, and shows this in his unconditional trust during all tests of life, one of which is of a special importance for Muslims.

This experience is referred to in the Festival of Sacrifice, the greatest Islamic festival. After the congregational festival prayer in the mortning, those who can afford it slaughter a sheep (or several individuals have part in a bigger animal, e.g. a cow) and share the meat: one third is for the poor who can thereby have part in the feast and eat meat at least once a year, one third is for friends and neighbours, and one third is for the members of one's own family. In the sermon that is held in that morning, the topic is usually the meaning of sacrifice. One aspect is to let go of something a person is attached to. This can only be meaningful, from an Islamic perspective, when it benefits others (like the meat that is shared with others). The readiness for sacrifice is tested: Abraham is confronted with the question whom he loves more, God or his own self personified in his son, a question many a human being has seen him/herself confronted with. But God does not demand human sacrifice as it is sometimes demanded by manmade idols (including modern idols like consumerism, progress or certain 'isms), and He does not demand self-sacrifice. Islâm does not mean self-destruction but Surrender to God, being at peace with God's will that says Yes to the human being as a creature, a surrender that leades to peace - salâm.

The Festifal of Sacrifice is a festival of joy and gratefulness. But also on personal occasions for special joy and gratefulness, e.g. the birth of a child, a passed exam, the recovery from a serious disease etc., a sheep is slaughtered if one can afford it, and the meat is distributed, often in connection with a meal. Nowadays many Muslims make use of the alternative possibility to send the equivalent in money to places where people are needy.

The Festival of Sacrifice is also a component of the Great Pilgrimage (Hajj). The logistic problems connected with the immense number of pilgrims who slaughter a sacrificial animal and the relatively small number of local poor people is nowadays solved by preserving the meat and taking it to areas where it can be used to feed the poor.

In the context of this story there is another tradition that is also remembered in a pilgrimage rite. When Abraham and his son were on their way to the place of sacrifice, the devil came and tried to dissuade them from what they were about to do, and they drove him away by throwing stones. The three places where this is said to have happened are nowadays marked with columns that are symbolically stoned by the pilgrims as an expression for the uninterrupted struggle against one's own bad inclinations incumbent on each and every human being.

The last sentences of the Qur'anic passage on the sacrifice and the fact that this story is specially connected with the pilgrimage to Mecca certainly leads to questions. Indeed, according to Arab tradition, Ismail is the son referre to in this passage. However, it is interesting to note that the name of the son in question does not occur in the Qur'an at all. From that we can conclude that, while it is only natural for the descendants of the two brothers to see each their own ancestor in this role, but this is neither the point necessary for an understanding of the story as the story of an existential human experience nor shoulc it be a reason for quarrel. In original Islamic thinking there is no claim to exclusivity. Both Ismail and Isaac are mentioned as prophetic figures, and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, the tribes of the Children of Israel, Moses and Aaron etc. are expressedly mentioned as part of the history of God and human beings. However, the Qur'an does not follow one single tradition of experience but concentrates on God's unity behind the variety of humankind as well as the prophetic element which is doubtless present in Isaac, Jacob and some of their children and descendants all the way through to Zakary, John and Jesus but also in other branches of the family from which non-Biblical prophets like Hud and Salih originate including finally Muhammad (s) as well as in all other nations the prophets of which are recognized in the Qur'an. The Qur'an confirms the special role of the Children of Israel in history as a model for their neighbouring nations while at the same time pointing out God's loving care for all nations and generations of humankind as manifested in the teachers and messengers He raised among them.

On the other hand, even for biological descendants of Abraham the decisive point is the attitude and behaviour of the individual during his/her lifetime like faithfulness to the One God and ethical behaviour towards fellow human beings and fellow creatures. The Qur'an emphasizes again and again the immediate individual responsibility of the human being that is closely linked with his/her dignity and can even be the foundation of closer ties than mere physical kinship. Abraham's prayers as mentioned in the Qur'an show again and again how important spiritual kinship was for him.

Here I would like to remind of the Bible where polytheism and disregard for God's commandments were seen as breaking the covenant with God and repeatedly criticized by the prophets. However, the possibility for repentance and forgiveness was of course left open. Polytheism and social injustice are exactly the main points of Qur'anic criticism against the pre-Islamic Arabs (except for those who had turned to Judaism or Christianity or the Hanifs who were in search of individual ways towards the One, remembering the faith of their ancestor Abraham).

Abraham's friendship with God is manifested outwardly in his concern for his fellow human beings and inwardly in his familiarity with God.

The story of the guests who are immediately presented with a roasted calf by Abraham finds its echo in numerous traditions telling us about his proverbial hospitality. Hospitality and generosity have always been among the highest values with the Arabs and got a new accent through Islam.

It is the closeness to God which lies at the basis for gratefulness and joy and therefore of generosity. Gratefulness for all that we experience as God's gifts is one of the main Qur'anic motives to serve God and a most important station on the mystical path of self-education that leads from repentance and patience through gratefulnes and other stations to the love for God. In the case of Abraham, closeness and familiarity are progressed to a point where he, after getting acquainted with God's intentions, overcomes his fears - including the fear to be alienated from his friend or to annoy Him - and starts to debate with God, literally negotiating the fate of the "Wicked Cities" with Him even though the people have transgressed all limits and would not even be interested in his intercession.

A similar closeness and familiarity can be felt when Sarah laughs at the news that is too good to be true, just as one laughs at a good friend's joke. Except that in this case it is God's serious intention to grant her, despite her old age, the son she had been longing for, together with an outlook on later generations. Thus both Sarah and Hagar, each in their own way, become witnesses for God as opening new ways and possibilities where everything had seemed to be closed.

Finally the Qur'an refers to the construction of the Ka'ba as the first house of prayer for humankind dedicated to the One God. Being a simple empty building, it is seen as a symbol for the human heart, not only because it is the heart of the Muslim word, the Muslim community standing up in a worldwide circle around it during prayer, but also exactly because it is empty, that is, free of idols, just as the individual's heart should be empty in order to become "God's house. The circambulation of the Ka'ba is one of the pilgrimage rites that should make us aware of the fact that not the ego is in the centre but God with whom our hearts are linked, and that we are parts of an manyfold humanity searching for paths into His presence.

The black stone that hat marked the place where Hagar's prayer was answered and she and Ismail was given a provision for life was put into one corner of the Ka'ba, and when pilgrims kiss and touch it, it is like being in touch with all those human beings who touched it before, all the way back to Abraham, Hagar and Ismail. The circambulation is then finished with a prayer at the place where Abraham is said to have stood and prayed. But beyond this, Abraham's Position is an attitude of the heart from which we are to bring our prayers before God.

We have already seen how important it is for Abraham to include his descendants into his close relationship with God. Surrendering to God, in Arabic, is muslim, and this is exactly the word used in the text when it says, "Make both of us surrender to You, and make our descendants (lit. "the descendants of both of us", dual) a community surrendering to You." Islâm in its literal meaning is an attitude, independant of formal membership on a religious community, a potential that drives human beings (and, by the way, other creatures as well) to live in harmony with God and His creation, but often disregarded by a human being for selfish reasons. The teachings of the religions, from the Qur'anic perspective, now show us ways to overcome this selfishness and to make peace with God. The Qur'an confirms definitely that the teachings of other religions, especially those of the Abrahamic tradition that are accesiible in the Bible, originate in a genuine divine revelation and with a genuine prophetic teacher, among many others Moses and Jesus who are, together with Noah, Abraham and Muhammad, among God's most important messengers. The crtitcal Qur'anic approach on certain points of the doctrine and practice within the Jewish and Christian communinties correspond, on on the whole, to the critical attitude of the Biblical prophets, especially where polytheism and social injustice are concerned, while the communities themselves are recognized and invited for dialogue and constructive cooperation, while the responsibility for their matters liew with them on the basis of their own revealed values. Besides, this criticism is meant as a mirror for the Muslim community.

Abraham's and Ismail's request for a prophetic teacher for their descendants can, in retrospect, be referred to the Prophet Muhammad (s) who was raised among the Children of Ismail in the tribe of Quraish in order to confront the religious and social evils of his time and to remind people of the One God, starting from his native city Mecca but with a further perspective. It was certainly not his intention to found a new religious community on top of the many already existing ones the disunity between which is criticised in the Qur'an but to remind of essential aspects that can bridge differences and make a constructive coexistence in variety possible. When we read the Qur'an in the chronological sequence of its revelation, we find that this perspective is followed even after it has become obvious, in Medina, that the community of the Prophet (s) does have to organize itself as an independent religious community and struggle for its identity, and after conflicts with the Jewish tribes within the city that could hardly be bridged as well as threats from the side of the (Christian) military forces of Byzantium. The basic idea of coexistence in variety where variety is used for a constructive competition for the implementation of good values has made it possible, despite all tensions and conflicts, that Jewish and Christian groups within the classical Islamic empire could unfold their religious, social and cultural life (it is only recently that this basic idea seems to be pushed into the background, but this imlies pushing an essential aspect of Islam into the background).

In this context, the experience of Abraham and his family members is used in the Qur'an to show a perspective beyond the existing differences and disputes, a perspective of what really matters: