Muslims place great faith in the Qur'anic association of Islam with the faith of Abraham and of Ishmael. For example, the Qur'an mutates the story of Abraham's testing by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, as a one where Abraham is called to sacrifice his son Ishmael. (Although the Qur'anic texts are vague as to who is the son referred to, the hadith and the traditional commentators make it clear that the Arabs considered Ishmael to be the sacrificial victim.) They also associate Abraham and Ishmael with the building of the Ka'aba in Mecca. There are efforts by Muslims to link Muhammad to Ishmael through a sort of genealogy similar to that in the Gospels that are associated with Jesus. But these are all contrived. There is simply no historical evidence that links Abraham or Ishmael with Mecca. None. As Alfred Guillaume states in his book Islam, "[T]here is no historical evidence for the assertion that Abraham or Ishmael was ever in Mecca." (p. 61) And just because the Muslim says it is so does not make it so.
Indeed, one of the most damning evidence against the claim that Abraham and Ishmael were in Mecca and were part of the Arabic historical patrimony is a fact mentioned by Guillaume. The name Ishmael was lost to the Arabs in the Hijaz, the area wherein Muhammad lived. Had Ishmael been part of the historical patrimony of the Arabs in that area, then the name should have been known in it Arabian or Semitic form, specifically with its initial consonant "Y," i.e., as in Hebrew, יִשְׁמָעֵאל, or Yishma'el. Instead, the Arabic uses the word 'Isma'il (إسماعيل ), which is derived--not from the Semitic form--but from the Greek or Latin. In Greek, Yishmael was rendered into Ισμαήλ or Ismaēl, the consonant "y" (yodh) dropped for the vowel "i" (iota). Similarly, in Latin, it was rendered into Ismael. The Arabic reflects this change in the Greek or Latin, and so the Arabic is clearly derived from the Greek or Latin, or perhaps Syriac version of the name. (The same is true, by the way, of the words Isaac and Israel. Also, there are clearly Greek-forms that are adopted as it relates to other biblical personages, such as Jonah (Yunus) and Elijah (Ilyas).*)
Fresco in the Haft Tan Museum in Iran Showing Abraham Sacrificing Ishmael
This is extremely strong circumstantial evidence that there was no independent belief among the Arabs of Muhammad's time of any link between Mecca and the Ka'aba or any link between the Arabs of the Hijaz and Abraham and Ishmael. There was simply no such tradition, and, as in many things invented by Muhammad, it was simply foisted upon them by "prophetic" fiat.
As Guillaume further notes. "[I]f there had been such a tradition it would have to be explained how all memory of the old Semitic name Ishamel (which was known in its true Arabian form in Arabrian inscriptions and written correctly with an initial consonant Y) came to be lost. The form in the Quran is taken either from Greek or Syriac sources." (p. 61-62)
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*See also Alphonse Mingana, D.D., "Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur'an.
