The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 347
PT. 13 IBRAHİM CH. 14 Who has given me, despite my الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي وَهَبَ لِي عَلَى الْكِبَرِ ,All praise belongs to Allah. 40 اِسْمُعِيلَ وَ إِسْحَقَ اِنَّ رَبِّي old age, Ishmael and Isaac لَسَمِيعُ الدُّعَاءِ Surely, my Lord is the Hearer of Prayer. 1694 of the nobility and purity of Abraham's motives in settling his wife and child in the uncultivable valley of Mecca. Thus, incidentally, they also constitute a refutation of the Biblical imputation against Abraham that he drove away Hagar and Ishmael in order to please Sarah (Gen. 21:10,14). The charge has been proved to be false and baseless from the mouth of Abraham himself. He is spoken of in these verses as saying that the Omniscient God to Whom the inmost secrets of the human heart are known, was aware that he was not leaving Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness of Mecca in order to please any woman but to win the pleasure of God and that He might be worshipped in the Sacred House. In the pathetic words, Our Lord, certainly Thou knowest what we conceal and what we make known, Abraham calls on God to testify to the honesty of his motives. of By the words, And nothing whatsoever is hidden from Allah, whether in the earth or in the heaven, God testifies to the truth Abraham's words, meaning that He knew the purity of Abraham's intentions in settling his wife and child in that bleak and barren place. 1694. Important Words: cow (Ishmael), literally meaning "God heard the Prayer," was the 1555 eldest son of Abraham by his Egyptian wife, Hagar. He was born as a result of a prayer of Abraham when the latter was eighty-six years of age. In fulfilment of his dream in which he saw himself offering Ishmael as a sacrifice in the way of God, Abraham, being apprised by God, realized it was when he took the infant Ishmael and his mother Hagar to the wilderness of Arabia with a view to settling them in the barren and uncultivable valley of Mecca near the Sacred House of God. Twelve sons were born to Ishmael, the best known of whom is Kedar, the great ancestor of the Arab nation (Enc. Bib. & Jew. Enc. ). See also 2:128-130. (Isaac) was the second son of Abraham by his wife, Sarah. He was the father of Jacob alias Israel, the great progenitor of the Israelites. He is known as "the Second Patriarch. " He is considered by Jews and Christians to be that son of Abraham whom he offered to sacrifice in fulfilment of his dream. But the testimony of history and the Bible contradicts this assumption. The expression of gratefulness to God on the part of Abraham for having been granted Ishmael and Isaac at a time when he was actually building the Ka'bah seems to be rather misplaced. But the fact is that