Which Son Was Bound: A Point the Traditions Do Not Share

The Genesis account of Abraham's near sacrifice explicitly names Isaac as the son commanded to be bound, and Jewish and Christian tradition have consistently followed that identification without significant dispute. Islamic tradition tells substantially the same underlying story of a father commanded to sacrifice his son, but the Qur'an itself does not name which son was involved in that particular episode, and it was later tafsir and hadith literature, working through the question over succeeding generations, that generally settled on Ishmael rather than Isaac as the intended son in the majority Islamic reading, a conclusion reached by interpretation rather than stated outright in the Qur'anic text. This divergence is well documented and openly discussed within Islamic scholarship itself, including some early disagreement among commentators before the Ishmael identification became dominant. The two traditions also diverge sharply on Ishmael's broader significance beyond this one episode.

Genesis treats him mainly as the son sent away with his mother Hagar after the birth of Isaac, a departure the text frames as necessary but sorrowful, and gives him a comparatively minor ongoing role in the larger patriarchal narrative. Islamic tradition instead gives Ishmael a central and honoured position, as a prophet in his own right and, through his descendants, the traditional ancestor of the Arab peoples and a figure closely associated with the founding of the Kaaba alongside Abraham.