Texts of Islam

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Abraham: Getting Out From Iraq To The Land of Shem

Summary only - full text stays on its own separately-gated source. Read the full text at the source »

This is a passage from an Islamic sacred text (identified as drawing on sources like Al-Mas`udi's *Muruj Al-Dhahab*) retelling a narrative episode from the life of Abraham (Ibrahim). The text recounts Abraham's exile from Nimrod's kingdom after the idol-breaking incident: he legally argues for compensation under local law, wins his case, and departs with Lot and his wife Sarah toward the region of Shem (Syria/Palestine). A central episode describes Abraham and Sarah's encounter with a Coptic king (a figure parallel to Pharaoh in Genesis), where a tithe-gatherer forces open Sarah's concealed palanquin, revealing her beauty to the king, who twice attempts to touch her and is twice miraculously paralyzed in answer to Abraham's prayer. The king, awed by this divine intervention, honors Abraham as a guest, releases him with his wealth intact, and gifts Sarah a Coptic maid named Hagar. The passage closes with Abraham, having no children with Sarah, taking Hagar as a wife at Sarah's suggestion — the union that produces Ishmael. Distinctively, the text emphasizes Abraham's intense jealousy as a recurring moral trait, frames the miraculous hand-paralysis as direct proof of God's protective power, and traces Hagar's origins to a specific royal gift rather than a purchase, situating these events within an Islamic prophetic geography of blessed Levantine lands.

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Abraham: Getting Out From Iraq To The Land of Shem

Related pages View as graph →