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In the [[Bible|biblical]] [[Book of Genesis]], '''Ishmael'''{{Efn|{{Hebrew Name|יִשְׁמָעֵאל اسماعيل|Yīšmaʿéʾl|Yīšmāʿēʾl|"God hears"}}; {{
Within [[Islam]], Ishmael is regarded as a [[Islamic prophets|prophet]] and the ancestor of the [[Ishmaelites]] ([[Hagarenes]] or [[Adnanites]]) and patriarch of [[Qaydār]].
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The birth of Ishmael was planned by the Patriarch [[Abraham]]'s first wife,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Genesis 16 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.16 |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.sefaria.org}}</ref> who at that time was known as [[Sarah|Sarai]]. She and her husband Abram (Abraham) sought a way to have children in order to fulfill the [[Abrahamic covenant]] that was established in {{Bibleverse|Genesis|15|HE}}. Sarai was 75 years old and had yet to bear a child. She had the idea to offer her Egyptian handmaiden [[Hagar (biblical person)|Hagar]] to her husband so that they could have a child by her. Abraham slept with Hagar and she begat a child.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Genesis 16:3-4 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.16.3-4 |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.sefaria.org}}</ref>
[[File:François-Joseph Navez - Agar et Ismaël dans le désert (cropped).jpg|thumb|A depiction of [[Hagar]] and her son Ishmael in the desert (1819) by [[François-Joseph Navez]]]]
Hagar and Sarah began to show contempt for each other, they responded by treating each other harshly. Abraham then told Hagar to flee
Abraham was blessed so that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Genesis 26:4 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.26.4 |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=www.sefaria.org}}</ref> God would make of Ishmael a great nation because he was of the seed of Abraham. However, God told Hagar that her son would be living in conflict with his relatives. When Ishmael was born, Abraham was 86 years old.
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It is also said that Sarah was motivated by Ishmael's sexually frivolous ways because of the reference to his "making merry" (Gen. 21:9), a translation of the Hebrew word "Mitzachek".{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} This was developed into a reference to idolatry, sexual immorality or even murder; some rabbinic sources claim that Sarah worried that Ishmael would negatively influence Isaac, or that he would demand Isaac's inheritance on the grounds of being the firstborn. Regarding the word "Mitzachek" (again in Gen. 21:9) The Jewish Study Bible by [[Oxford University Press]] says this word in this particular context is associated with "Playing is another pun on Isaac's name (cf. 17.17; 18.12; 19.14; 26.8). Ishmael was 'Isaacing', or 'taking Isaac's place'."<ref>{{cite book |author1=Adele Berlin |author2=Marc Zvi Brettler |title=The Jewish Study Bible |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |isbn=9780195297515 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aDuy3p5QvEYC&dq=isaacing&pg=PA44 44] }}</ref> Others take a more positive view, emphasizing Hagar's piety, noting that she was "the one who had sat by the well and besought him who is the life of the worlds, saying 'look upon my misery'".<ref name="dict">Jeffrey, David L., ''A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature'', Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992, p. 326 {{ISBN|0-8028-3634-8}}</ref>
==Rabbanic Literature==
n Rabbinical Literature:
The name of Ishmael is an allusion to God's promise to hear [https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8251-ishmael] the complaints of Israel whenever it suffered at the hands of Ishmael (Gen. R. xlv. 11). Abraham endeavored to bring up Ishmael in righteousness; to train him in the laws of hospitality Abraham gave him the calf to prepare (Gen. R. xlviii. 14; comp. Gen. xviii. 7). But according to divine prediction Ishmael remained a savage. The ambiguous expression [https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8251-ishmael] in Gen. xxi. 9 (see Hagar) is interpreted by some rabbis as meaning that Ishmael had been idolatrous; by others, that he had turned his bow against Isaac. According to the interpretation of Simeon b. Yoḥai, Ishmael mocked those who maintained that Isaac would be Abraham's chief heir, and said that as he (Ishmael) was the first-born son he would receive two-thirds of the inheritance (Tosef., Sotah, v. 12, vi. 6; Pirḳe R. El. xxx.; Gen. R. liii. 15). Upon seeing the danger to Isaac, Sarah, who had till then been attached to Ishmael (Josephus, "Ant." i. 12, § 3), insisted that Abraham cast out Ishmael. Abraham was obliged to put him on Hagar's shoulders, because he fell sick under the spell of the evil eye cast upon him by Sarah (Gen. R. liii. 17).
Ishmael, left under a shrub by his despairing mother, prayed to God to take his soul and not permit him to suffer the torments of a slow death (comp. Targ. pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xxi. 15). God then commanded the angel to show Hagar the well which was created on Friday in the week of Creation, in the twilight (comp. Ab. v. 6), and which afterward accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness (Pirḳe R. El. xxx.). But this was protested against by the angels, who said: "Why should Ishmael have water, since his descendants will destroy the Israelites by thirst?" (comp. Yer. Ta'an. iv. 8; Lam. R. ii. 2). God replied: "But now he is innocent, and I judge him according to what he is now" (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.; Gen. R. l.c.; et al.). Ishmael married a Moabitess named 'Adishah or 'Aishah (variants "'Ashiyah" and "'Aifah," Arabic names; Targ. pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xxi. 21; Pirḳe R. El. l.c.); or, according to "Sefer ha-Yashar" (Wayera), an Egyptian named Meribah or Merisah. He had four sons and one daughter. Ishmael meanwhile grew so skilful in archery that he became the master of all the bowmen (Targ. pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xxi. 20; Gen.R. liii. 20). Afterward Abraham went to see Ishmael, and, according to his promise to Sarah, stopped at his son's tent without alighting from his camel. Ishmael was not within; his wife refused Abraham food, and beat her children and cursed her husband within Abraham's hearing. Abraham thereupon asked her to tell Ishmael when he returned that an old man had asked that he change the peg of the tent. Ishmael understood that it was his father, took the hint, and drove away his wife. He then married another woman, named Faṭimah (Peḳimah; Targ. pseudo-Jonathan l.c.), who, when three years later Abraham came again to see his son, received him kindly; therefore Abraham asked her to tell Ishmael that the peg was good.
Ishmael then went to Canaan and settled with his father (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.; "Sefer ha-Yashar," l.c.). This statement agrees with that of Baba Batra (16a)—that Ishmael became a penitent during the lifetime of Abraham. He who sees Ishmael in a dream will have his prayer answered by God (Ber. 56a).<ref>[https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8251-ishmael#anchor2 Ishmael Jewish Encyclopedia]</ref>
===Christianity===
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