(6) Al-Baiẓāwī says it was Ishmael, and not Isaac, whom Abraham was willing to offer up as a sacrifice; but this view is neither supported by the text of the Qurʾān nor by the preponderance of traditional testimony. If we compare [Sūrah xi. 74]: “And We announced Isaac (as the child of promise) to her,” with [Sūrah xxxvii. 99]: “We announced (as a child of promise) to him a youth of meekness; and when he became a full-grown youth, his father said to him, ‘My son, I have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice thee’ ”—there can be no doubt in any candid mind that, as far as the Qurʾān is concerned, Isaac and not Ishmael is intended. [[ISAAC].]
The two commentators al-Kamālān quote a number of traditions on the subject. They say Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ḥasan, and ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn Aḥmad, relate that it was Isaac; whilst Ibn Masʿūd, Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah, Qatādah, and Ibn Isḥāq say it was Ishmael. But whatever may be the real facts of the case, it is certain that popular tradition amongst both Sunnīs and Shīʿahs assigns the honour to Ishmael, and believe the great Festival of Sacrifice, the ʿĪdu ʾl-Aẓḥā, to have been established to commemorate the event. [[ʿIDU ʾL-AZHA].]
The author of the Shīʿah work, the Ḥayātu ʾl-Qulūb (Merrick’s ed. p. 28) says: “On a certain occasion when this illustrious father (Abraham) was performing the rites of the pilgrimage at Mecca, Abraham said to his beloved child, ‘I dreamed that I must sacrifice you; now consider what is to be done with reference to such an admonition.’ Ishmael replied, ‘Do as you shall be commanded of God. Verify your dream. You will find me endure patiently.’ But when Abraham was about to sacrifice Ishmael, the Most High God made a black and white sheep his substitute, a sheep which had been pasturing forty years in Paradise, and was created by the direct power of God for this event. Now every sheep offered on Mount Minā, until the Day of Judgment is a substitute, or a commemoration of the substitute for Ishmael.”
The idea is universal amongst Muḥammadans that the incident took place on Mount Minā near Makkah, and not in the “land of Moriah,” as stated in [Genesis xxii. 3]. (For a discussion on the site of Mount Moriah, see Mr. George Grove’s article in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible.)
Sir William Muir says (Life of Mahomet, new ed. p. xvii.): “By a summary adjustment, the story of Palestine became the story of the Hejâz. The precincts of the Káaba were hallowed as the scene of Hagar’s distress, and the sacred well Zamzem as the source of her relief. The pilgrims hasted to and fro between Safa and Marwa in memory of her hurried steps in search of water. It was Abraham and Ishmael who built the (Meccan) temple, placed in it the black stone, and established for all mankind the pilgrimage to Arafât. In imitation of him it was that stones were flung by pilgrims at Satan; and sacrifices were offered at Minâ in remembrance of the vicarious sacrifice by Abraham instead of his son. And thus, although the indigenous rites may have been little if at all altered, by the adoption of the Abrahamic legends, they came to be viewed in a totally different light, and to be connected in the Arab imagination with something of the sanctity of Abraham, the Friend of God. The gulf between the gross idolatry of Arabia and the pure theism of the Jews was bridged over. Upon this common ground Mahomet took his stand, and proclaimed to his people a new and a spiritual system, in accents to which all Arabia could respond. The rites of the Káaba were retained, but stripped by him of every idolatrous tendency; and they still hang, a strange unmeaning shroud, around the living theism of Islâm.”
ʿISHQ (عشق). “Love.” A word used by mystic writers to express a divine love. The word, however, preferred by orthodox Muslim writers for the love of God, or love to God, is ḥubb (حب).
ISLĀM (اسلام). Resignation to the will of God. The word generally used by Muḥammadans themselves for their religion. ʿAbdu ʾl-Ḥaqq says it implies submission to the divine will; and Muḥammad explained it to mean the observance of the five duties: (1) Bearing witness that there is but one God; (2) Reciting the daily prayers; (3) Giving the legal alms; (4) Observing the Ramaẓān or month’s fast; (5) Making the pilgrimage to Makkah once in a lifetime.
In the Qurʾān the word is used for doing homage to God. Islām is said to be the religion of all the prophets from the time of Abraham, as will appear from the following verses ([Sūrah iii. 78, 79]):—“Say: We believe in God and in what hath been sent down to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and in what was given to Moses, and Jesus and the Prophets from their Lord. We make no difference between them, and to Him are we resigned (i.e. Muslims). Whoso desireth any other religion than Islām, that religion shall never be accepted of Him, and in the next world he shall be lost.”
There are three words used by Muḥammadan writers for religion, namely Dīn, Millah, and Maẕhab; and in the Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrīfāt, the difference implied in these words is said to be as follows:—Dīn, as it stands in its relation to God, e.g. Dīnu ʾllāh, the religion of God; Millah, as it stands in relation to a prophet or lawgiver, e.g. Millatu Ibrāhīm, the religion of Abraham; and Maẕhab, as it stands in relation to the divines of Islām, e.g. Maẕhab Ḥanafī, the religion or religious teaching of Abū Ḥanīfah. The expression Dīn, however, is of general application. [[RELIGION].]
Those who profess the religion of Islām are called Musalmāns, Muslims, or Muʾmins.