The Qur’an does retell the Abrahamic narrative but leaves certain elements unspoken: Hagar’s name, the name of the son to be sacrificed, circumcision, and even Zamzam.

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✦ Introduction

The Qur’an recounts the story of Abraham (Ibrāhīm عليه السلام) with remarkable depth — his search for God, his trials, and his covenant. Yet on some of the most debated aspects of his legacy, the Qur’an remains silent: it does not name Hagar, the mother of Ishmael; it does not identify the son who was nearly sacrificed; it does not legislate circumcision; and it does not name Zamzam, the well that saved Ishmael’s line in the barren valley of Makkah.

To some, this silence seems puzzling. But when read against the backdrop of Jewish and Christian claims of covenantal exclusivity, the silence of the Qur’an is not absence — it is strategy. It universalizes Abraham’s covenant, bypasses rabbinic control of scripture, and positions Muhammad ﷺ and his Ummah as the true fulfillment of Abraham’s prayer.

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✦ Hagar and Zamzam: The Forgotten Mother Remembered by Rites

• Torah: Hagar is remembered as the Egyptian servant, driven away. Her suffering becomes marginal to the covenant story, which centers Isaac.

• Qur’an: Hagar’s name is absent, but her story is enshrined in ritual. The sa‘y (ritual walking) between Ṣafā and Marwah (Q 2:158) immortalizes her desperate search for water. Zamzam is not named, but every pilgrim drinks from it.

Theological Point: By omitting her name yet embedding her sacrifice into the Hajj, the Qur’an elevates Hagar from marginal slave to the mother of covenantal continuity — without needing textual polemics against the Torah.

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✦ The Sacrificed Son: A Test Beyond Lineage

• Torah: Genesis 22 names Isaac as the intended sacrifice, tying the covenant firmly to Israel’s patriarch.

• Qur’an: The son is never named (Q 37:99–113). Early Muslim memory, however, identifies him as Ishmael.

Theological Point: Silence denies Jewish exclusivism the chance to argue “lineage proof.” Instead, the focus is shifted: covenant is about submission, not biology. In Islam, the moral weight of the sacrifice lives on in Eid al-Adha — commemorated globally — whereas the Torah prescribes no festival for the Akedah (The Binding of Isaac).

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✦ Circumcision: From Physical Mark to Spiritual Covenant

• Torah: Circumcision is the everlasting “sign” of Abraham’s covenant (Genesis 17).

• Qur’an: No mention of circumcision at all. Instead, believers are called to follow “the millah of Abraham” (Q 16:123; Q 22:78).

Theological Point: By omitting circumcision, the Qur’an redirects the covenant away from bodily marks to spiritual submission. Abraham’s legacy becomes a matter of faith and obedience, not merely a cut in the flesh. Circumcision survives in Sunnah, but the Qur’an shifts the axis of covenant from tribal identity to universal submission.

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✦ The Jewish Perplexity and Envy

The rabbis of late antiquity held covenant as Israel’s exclusive treasure: Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau. But the Qur’an reframes it:

• “My covenant does not include the wrongdoers.” (Q 2:124)

• “Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a ḥanīf, a Muslim.” (Q 3:67)

• “Many of the People of the Book wish to turn you back to disbelief out of envy, after the truth has become clear to them.” (Q 2:109)

The covenant thus shifts from a genealogical privilege to an ethical trust. This move perplexes and unsettles Jewish exclusivity because it means the covenant they guarded through Isaac reappears in Ishmael’s children — embodied in Muhammad ﷺ and his Ummah.

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✦ Muhammad ﷺ and the Universalization of the Covenant

Abraham prayed:

“Our Lord, raise up from among them a Messenger, who will recite to them Your revelations, teach them the Book and wisdom, and purify them.”

(Q 2:129)

Muslims see Muhammad ﷺ as the direct fulfillment of this prayer. His Ummah, spread across nations, becomes Abraham’s true seed — the global nation of submission.

Thus, the Qur’an’s silence is purposeful: it avoids being trapped in ethnic polemics and instead establishes a covenant fulfilled through faith, not bloodline. This universality disarms rabbinic exclusivity and leaves Jewish scholars both perplexed and envious, as the covenantal promise “from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18) finds a broader expression in Islam’s spread.

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✦ Conclusion

The Qur’an’s silences — on Hājar’s name, on the sacrificed son, on circumcision, and on Zamzam — are not omissions but theological strategies. They strip away tribal markers and redirect covenantal identity to submission to God.

Through this reframing, Muhammad ﷺ and his Ummah are established as the living heirs of Abraham’s covenant, fulfilling the patriarch’s universal mission. What once appeared as a lineage dispute is recast as a faith-based covenant — one that transcends genealogy and extends to all who submit to the God of Abraham.

— Azahari Hassim

Founder, The World of Abrahamic Theology