Muslims believe that Ishmael is the source of Islam, that Ishmael (and not Isaac) was sacrificed by Abraham, and that Adam built the Kaaba in Mecca, the destination of Muslim pilgrimage. What does the Bible say about these matters?
The book of Genesis is naturally the most reliable record of the events in Abraham’s family. Ishmael was born in 2080 BC (Gen. 16:15). He died at age 137 in 1943 BC (25:17). Moses, the author of Genesis, was a direct descendant of Abraham. His genealogy (Exod. 6:16-20) shows that he belonged to the tribe of Levi, Abraham’s grandson. Moses was born in 1526 BC, just three centuries after Ishmael’s death.
Islamic teaching rewrites biblical history. Ishmael was a Muslim. Ishmael was Abraham’s chosen son. Abraham offered Ishmael and not Isaac. And what is the authority for rewriting the Bible? Muhammad, a man born 25 centuries after Ishmael’s death.
Ishmael wasn’t a Muslim. There was no such thing as Islam until Muhammad began teaching it. Ishmael wasn’t a Christian either. Neither was Isaac. There was no Christian faith until Jesus rose from the dead in AD 30. Ishmael wasn’t even a Hebrew living under the law of Moses. God didn’t make a covenant with Israel at Sinai until Ishmael had been dead for four centuries. Ishmael (like his father and brother) lived in the age of the patriarchs. Each father was the spiritual leader of his own family. He functioned as its priest and prophet and ruler. There was no national or world religion for God’s people.
Islam claims that Adam or Abraham built the Kaaba. The Adam myth can be dismissed without hesitation. The great flood of Noah’s time changed the face of the earth—splitting the land into seven continents, gouging out great canyons, and creating towering mountains. No building survived. The Abraham myth can be dismissed too. Genesis gives a thorough record of the patriarch’s journeys. He didn’t go to Mecca. He didn’t build the Kaaba. Instead he built altars to the Lord (Gen. 12:7). “Lord” in English versions occurs wherever Yahweh appears in the Hebrew text.
Rewriting biblical history gives Islam an insurmountable problem. Let me illustrate this way. Imagine that I’m sitting in the branches of a tree. The trunk is supporting the branch I’m sitting on. Deciding that the trunk has rotted, I ask someone to chop down the tree with an ax. What’s going to happen? Obviously, when the trunk falls, my branch falls with it.
The Quran depends on the Bible. The Quran makes no sense without the Bible. The Quran is written long after the Bible and claims to be in the scriptural tradition. The Quran praises “people of the Book.” And yet the Quran takes an ax to the Bible, chopping away at its inspired record of events.