Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends
They say that Hagar died at Mecca, and that she was buried in the
exterior enclosure of the Kaaba, or square temple, built, say they, by
Abraham.
Near the tomb is the well of Zemzem, which is the fountain which God
revealed to her when she had been driven out of the house of Sarah, and
had fled into Arabia.
As has been already mentioned, the Mussulmans say that it was Ishmael
and not Isaac whom Abraham prepared to sacrifice. The story need not be
related again, as all the particulars in the Jewish legends are absorbed
into the Mussulman account.
One particular alone needs mention. Gabriel gave the ram to Abraham in
the place where Mussulman pilgrims now cast stones; namely, on the
mountain of Mina. But the ram escaped out of the hands of Abraham, and
the patriarch threw seven stones after it. Then Ishmael went forward,
and the ram halted. Ishmael went up to the ram and brought it to
Abraham, and he took it, and slew it. Some say that this was the same
ram that Abel had offered in sacrifice, and which had been preserved in
Paradise.[355]
Then God said to Abraham, “Go to Mecca along with Ishmael, and build me
the temple there.”
At Mecca had been the “Visited-house,” to which Adam went in pilgrimage,
and round which he walked in procession every year. When the Flood came,
this house had been caught up into heaven.
When Abraham went in obedience to the command of God to visit Ishmael,
and to call him to build the temple, he found him on a mountain engaged
in making arrows. He said to him, “O my son, God has ordered me to build
a house along with thee.”
Ishmael replied, “I am ready to obey, O my father.”
Then they prepared to build. But Abraham knew nothing of architecture.
God sent a cloud of the size of the Kaaba, to show them, by its shadow
on the ground, what were to be the dimensions of the house, and to give
them shade in which to build.
But some say that the Serpent arrived and instructed Abraham in the
proportions of the house. After that, Abraham and Ishmael began to dig
the trenches which were to receive the foundations; and they gave them
the depth of a man’s stature. Then they raised them to the level of the
soil; after that, they cut stones out of the neighbouring rocks for the
walls of the edifice. Abraham built, and Ishmael handed the stones. Now,
when the wall got above his reach, Abraham placed a stone on the ground,
and stood upon that to build, and he left thereon the impression of his
foot. The stone remains to this day, and is called Makam Ibrahîm.
And when the temple was built, God sent Gabriel to instruct Abraham in
all the rites of pilgrimage, and how to visit Mina and Mount Arafat, and
how to go processionally round the Kaaba, and to cast the stones, and to
wear the pilgrim’s dress, and to make sacrifice, and to shave the head,
to visit the holy places, and all that concerns the pilgrimage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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