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Ishmael
son of Abraham

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Also known as: Ismāʿīl

Written by Adam Zeidan
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Benjamin West: Hagar and

Ishmael

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Arabic: Ismāʿīl

Notable Family Members: father

Abraham • mother Hagar

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 Ishmael, son of Abraham through
Hagar, according to the three great
Abrahamic religions—Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. After the
birth of Isaac, another son of
Abraham, through Sarah, Ishmael
and his mother were banished to
the desert. A minor figure
thereafter in the traditions of
Judaism and Christianity, Ishmael
continued to play a foundational
role in Islamic tradition, which
holds that he settled in Mecca.

In the Old Testament (Genesis

16:1–16; 17:18–26; 21:1–21),
Abraham’s wife Sarah was initially
unable to bear children and
therefore gave Abraham her
maidservant Hagar to conceive an
heir. Ishmael was born and brought
up in Abraham’s household. Some
13 years later, however, Sarah
conceived Isaac, with whom God
established his covenant. Isaac
became Abraham’s sole heir, and
Ishmael and Hagar were banished

to the desert, though God promised

that Ishmael would raise up a great
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 nation of his own.

Ishmael, commonly regarded by

both Jews and Arabs as the
progenitor of the Arabs, is
considered a messenger and a
prophet (rasūl nabī) in the Qurʾān
(e.g., 19:54). Though little is said
about him in the Qurʾān itself aside
from his designation as a prophet,
it suggests that he assisted
Abraham in building Islam’s most
sacred structure, the Kaaba, in
Mecca (2:127). Most Islamic
traditions about Ishmael come
from other, extrascriptural sources,
such as Hadith, tafsīr (Islamic
exegesis), and qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ
(stories of the prophets). According
to the most well-known of these
:
 traditions, after Ishmael and Hagar
were banished, they settled in
Mecca, near which they had found
relief and water at the Well of
Zamzam. Later, in nearby Minā,
Abraham attempted to sacrifice
Ishmael (rather than Isaac, as
stated in the Old Testament), an
event commemorated on Eid al-
Adha and in the rituals of the hajj
(pilgrimage).

Adam Zeidan

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Martin Luther King,

Jr., 1929–68

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Written by Rick Livingston , Mary Rose McCudden

,Jeff Wallenfeldt See All
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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., waving to the
crowd at the Lincoln Memorial on…
August 28, 1963.

Minister and social activist Martin

Luther King, Jr., was the
preeminent leader of the American
civil rights movement from the
mid-1950s until his assassination in
1968. His guidance was
fundamental to the movement’s

success in ending the legal

segregation of Black Americans in
:
 the South and other parts of the
United States. He rose to national
prominence as a leader of the
Montgomery bus boycott in 1955–
56 and later as the head of the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, which pursued civil
rights through nonviolent tactics,
such as the Selma March (1965)
and the massive March on
Washington (1963), at the
culmination of which, King, an
immensely gifted orator, delivered
his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1964 and is commemorated
by the Martin Luther King, Jr.
National Memorial in Washington,
D.C. Learn more about Dr. King’s
extraordinary accomplishments
through our timeline of his life.
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Mary Rose McCudden

Jeff Wallenfeldt

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