From Hebrew ‘slave’ to Arabian ‘sage’: Linking the Jewish and Muslim narratives in the story of Hagar, the African in Pre-Islamic Arab History

Abstract

This article examines the place of Hagar, an African woman, in pre-Islamic Arab history. It examines the story as it is presented in both the Jewish Scripture and by Judeo-Christian scholars, on one hand, and in Muslim sources on the other. The Sarah-Hagar issue in the Abrahamic family-history mainly informs the Judeo-Christian interpretation of the generational deadlocks between the believers of the biblical message and Muslims. Thus, a new approach to the understanding of the Hagar-Narrative could facilitate mutual understanding in the interreligious dialogue. Both Jewish and Muslim sources, to a large extent, trace the ancestry of the present generation of the Arabs to Hagar, the former African “slave” of the mother of “Hebrew” Israel through her son, Ismā‘īl. The Judeo-Christian Hagar is presented as a sinner-slave who committed the sin of pride but who was welcome out of God’s infinite Mercy for sinners. Nevertheless, in the Muslim sources, God’s plan made this rejected African“slave” and her son the “sages” and pillars for a new nation and a fountain from which evolved “the greatest Prophet of humankind”,Muḥammad. The Story of Hagar is a neglected topic for interreligious dialogue between the Abrahamic faiths