Imam Abraham & the son of the Promise

[The Cat]

Imam Abraham and the son of the Promise... as enshrined in the Koran:

First, let us see how the Koran proclaims Abraham as an Imam, that is a timeless guide for all mankind...

2.124:
And (remember) when his Lord tried Abraham with (His) commands, and he fulfilled them, He said: Lo! I have appointed thee a *leader
for mankind* ('Imāmāan). (Abraham) said: And of my offspring (will there be leaders)? He said: My covenant includeth not wrong-doers.

Here, *leader for mankind* is a wrong religionist's translation. Truly, Abraham is made an IMAM (Arabic 'Imāmāan) for all of mankind.
Same with 21.73 where both Isaac and Jacob are appointed as imams! There are no other imams as per the Koran than those three,
so ALL the titles of Imam given to Shafi'i, Hanbal, Bukhari (or even Muhammad, etc) are plainly substituting to the Koranic injunctions!

21.72-73: And We bestowed upon him Isaac, and Jacob as a grandson. Each of them We made righteous. And We made them chiefs who
guide (immatan) by Our command, and We inspired in them the doing of good deeds and the right establishment of worship and the giving
of alms, and they were worshippers of Us (alone).

For Isaac is the son of the Promise (29.27), and NOT Ishmael:
29.27: And We bestowed on him Isaac and Jacob, and We established the prophethood and the Scripture among his seed,
and We gave him his reward in the world, and lo! in the Hereafter he verily is among the righteous.

I think it's appropriate to establish that the son of the Promise isn't Ishmael but Isaac, contrary to the Islamic tradition making him so and,
as such, the builder of Mecca. We shall see that the link Abraham-Ishmael-Mecca (thanks to the prodigious Buraq) is a pure mythology.

viewtopic.php?p=96993#p96993
The heart of the matter from 29.27 is that Allah is NOT bestowing prophethood to Ishmael at all. He's unnamed but Isaac and Jacob.
Ishmael is hardly mentioned in the Koran (12 times I think), mostly a name mentioned among others, not even in 37.100-113 dealing
with the Promised son. More troubling for Muslims is that his mother, Hagar, is never mentioned at all! Ishmael cannot be related
to Muhammad and even the Islamic tradition has it that Abraham sacrificed him through some journeys on 'Buraq'... !
Because the Islamic accounts clearly stated that Abraham left Hagar and Ishmael in Mecca, never to go back.

''The Buraq was also said to transport Abraham (Ibrahim) when he visited his wife Hagar and son Ishmael. According to tradition,
Abraham lived with one wife in Syria, but the Buraq would transport him in the morning to Mecca to see his family there, and take
him back in the evening to his Syrian wife.'' -wikipedia, Buraq. (Ibn Ishaq "Tarikh al-Tabari", I).

This must be true (!) otherwise, Abraham and Hagar travelled a thousand miles of uncharted desert, over 900 years before history records the
first caravan route was ever established along the Red Sea. Then Abraham dropped them off under a tree in the middle of nowhere (that is
supposed to have eventually become Mecca), and then Abraham "set out" on his thousand mile walk back home.

http://brotherpete.com/index.php?topic=1483.0
http://www.historyofmecca.com/
"There is no historical evidence for the assertion that Abraham or Ishmael was ever in Mecca, and if there had been such a tradition
it would have to be explained how all memory of the Old Semitic name Ishmael (...) came to be lost. The form in the Quran is taken
either from Greek or Syriac sources." (Islam, Alfred Guillaume, 1956, p 26-27, 61-62).

Many Muslims scholars, including Al-Tabari, realized that this tradition was a much later one fully fabricated along the need to change
Mecca into a holy sanctuary. The Abbasid dynasty was in the habit of constructing false genealogies, first to justify their 'Coup d'Etat'.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Vol2/4d.html

It is most significant to find the Qur'an once again taking no issue with the Bible and we read (surah 29.27): And We gave (Abraham) Isaac and Jacob, and ordained among his progeny Prophethood and Revelation (An-Nubūwata Wa Al-Kitāba), and we granted him his reward in this life: and he was in the Hereafter (of the company) of the Righteous. Yusuf Ali's translation is not strictly correct. The text says that God placed the Nubuwwah and the Kitaab, the Prophethood and the Scripture, into Isaac's line, and in another place the Qur'an says that al-Nubuwwah, the Prophethood, was expressly given to the Children of Israel (Surah 45.16).

45.16: And verily we gave the Children of Israel the Scripture and the Command and the Prophethood (Al-Kitāba
Wa Al-Ĥukma Wa An-Nubūwata), and provided them with good things and favoured them above (all) peoples...

Was Isaac or Ishmael to be sacrificied? by Sam Shamoun
http://www.answering-islam.org/Response ... /isaac.htm
Abraham and the Child of Sacrifice - Isaac or Ishmael? by Sam Shamoun
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/sacrifice.htm

* Isaac was the only promised child of Abraham, a fact which the Quran agrees with (cf. Genesis 17:15-21; Surah 11:69-73, 37:112-113, 51:24-30). Ishmael was never a promised child.

* Isaac was conceived miraculously to a barren mother and a very aged father, with the Quran likewise agreeing (cf. Genesis 17:15-17, 18:9-15, 21:1-7; Galatians 4:28-29; Surah 11:69-73, 51:24-30). Ishmael was conceived normally without the need of any miraculous intervention.

* God promised that it would be Isaac's descendants who would inherit the land given to Abraham. (Genesis 13:14-18, 15:18-21, 28:13-14). Ishmael had no part in the inheritance and promise given to Isaac through Abraham.

It is for these reasons that Isaac is called Abraham's only son since God himself reckoned him as the child of promise and blessings, an honor never bestowed upon Ishmael.

Sam Shamoun reports a testimony from Ibn al-Athir:
''The nature of the Islamic traditions regarding the Sacrifice suggests that those locating the act in Syria and assuming Isaac to have been
the intended victim WERE THE EARLIEST...The opposing exegesis of the Ishmael-Mecca school served not only to explain difficult passages
of the Qur’an, but also to provide an acceptable origin for some of the important ritual acts of the Islamic Pilgrimage. The lapidation and
the sacrifice of the Pilgrimage, both holdovers from a pagan pre-Islamic past, WERE RE-INTERPRETED through the narrative exegesis of
the Sacrifice legend to derive from the pure and pristine monotheism of Abraham…'' (Pp. 150-151)

Muslims like to say that the Bible has been corrupted. Well what about their Ishmael/Mecca 'fantasy land' traditions?

viewtopic.php?p=97077#p97077
19.58: These are they unto whom Allah showed favour from among the prophets, of the seed of Adam and of those whom We carried
along with Noah, and of the seed of Abraham and Israel, and from among those whom We guided and chose. When the revelations
of the Beneficent were recited unto them, they fell down, adoring and weeping.

Ishmael is NOT mentioned as from the rightful seed of Abraham which 19.49 ascertain AGAIN to be Isaac and Jacob. This is underline
again in 19.58: the seed is that of Abraham and Israel. Thus the Koran recognize the biblical account: Ishmael was the messenger send
to his nation, among hundreds of others, ruling out Muhammad as to the Arabs! Yet he's not the legitimate 'son of the Promise'.

37.112-113: --And we gave him tidings of the birth of Isaac, a prophet of the righteous. --And We blessed him and Isaac. And of their
seed are some who do good, and some who plainly wrong themselves.

Sarah is mentioned (by allusion) as the rightful mother and Hagar is not named even once in the whole Koran! 11:71-72:
And his wife, standing by laughed when We gave her good tidings (of the birth) of Isaac, and, after Isaac, of Jacob.
She said: Oh woe is me! Shall I bear a child when I am an old woman, and this my husband is an old man ? Lo! this is a strange thing!

The complete omission of Ishmael (and of Hagar) here talks volumes...

According to the Koran (and the Bible) it is Isaac who is of divine intervention (like Adam and Jesus), Ishmael is not. Period.

Now, according to the Koran itself, the line of prophethood and of -scriptures- is going from Noah to Abraham (Q.57.26), then
from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob (Q.29.27) and bani Israel (19:58): These are they unto whom Allah showed favour from among
the prophets, of the seed of Adam and of those whom We carried (in the ship) with Noah, and of the seed of Abraham and Israel.
Bani Israel means the whole Israelite people.

Isaac is mentioned many times as a child born from divine intervention, like Adam and Jesus.
But I ask: where is it stated in the Koran that Ishmael was from the rightful seed of Abraham?

Al-Tabari, looking upon the historicity of the debate, stated: "Only the Quran could serve as proof that the account naming Isaac
is clearly the more truthful of the two''. (Annals V2: p. 82). ''The Book does not mention any tidings of a male child given to
Abraham except in the instance where it refers to Isaac, in which God said, ‘And his wife, standing by laughed when we gave her
tidings of Isaac, and after Isaac, Jacob’, and ‘Then he became fearful of them’. They said. ‘Fear not!’ and gave him tidings of a
wise son. Then his wife approached, moaning, and smote her face, and cried, ‘A barren old woman’. Thus, wherever the Quran
mentions God giving tidings of the birth of a son to Abraham, it refers to Sarah (and thus to Isaac) and the same must be true of
God's words ‘So we gave him tidings of a gentle son’, as it is true of all such references in the Quran." (Ibid., p. 89).

http://mentalbondageinthenameofgod.word ... -in-mecca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_view_of_Ishmael

http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael.htm

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-a ... shmael.htm

http://islamcomicbook.com/resources/ishmael.htm
http://www.religionconflictpeace.org/node/51

The myth of Mecca and how Muslims have been duped!
http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/isl ... EEFLVV12OU

In conclusion we can safely say that the history of Hagar & Ishmael is but a magnified rewording of Gen.21.14-21:
And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

Except that the Ishaq story added 1,200 kilometers of unknown harsch desert, back and forth, so the need of Buraq!
As written in the Koran the name Ishmael (without the Y) isn't even Arabic but either Syriac or Greek,
which is another finger pointed at its perfect Arabic...

And Paran was also later know as Midian (or part of), that is the Northwest of Saudi Arabia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midian

Worse still: If Ishmael is the messenger sent to the Arabs... then... Muhammad has no ground left to be their own messenger !

[The Cat]

I've sharpened my study over this matter through some exchanges with a Muslim...

The Koranic notion of 'Imam'... does not include Ishmael but Isaac and Jacob:
viewtopic.php?p=190508#p190508

viewtopic.php?p=190697#p190697

After discussing over 17.71 my challenger came with the Koranic notions of Khatama (33.40) and Khalifat
viewtopic.php?p=190917#p190917

viewtopic.php?p=191144#p191144
17.71 clearly states that Muslims will be judged according to the 'Imam' they followed.
And the Islamic million man-made 'imams' are, each one of them, sure ways to hellfire...

17.73: And they indeed strove hard to beguile thee away from that wherewith We have inspired thee,
that thou shouldst invent other than it against Us; and then would they have accepted thee as a friend.

Finally, the Koranic notion of 'Millat Ibrahim'
viewtopic.php?p=191342#p191342

That's the path Muhammad himself had to follow (3.95), yet your own traditions became idolatrous.
When was he to found an already existing and finalized religion (5.3) as per the Koran (16.116)?

Yet even he, as -all- prophets, shouldn't be taken as lord as do Muhammadans (3.80).
They are to be considered and honored -equally-. Are they ?