Hagar (Bible)
Encyclopedia
Hagar according to the Abrahamic faiths
, was the second wife of Abraham
, and the mother of his first son, Ishmael
. Her story is recorded in the Book of Genesis, mentioned in Hadith
, and alluded to in the Qur'an
. Hagar's son, Ishmael, is the patriarch of the Ishmaelites
.
. Hagar was offered, by her mistress, to Abram to be as a second “wife”. Sarai presented this offering to her husband because she had been barren for so long and sought a way to fulfill God
's promise, especially since they were getting older.
When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Sarai sensed her slave's attitude which caused her to suffer greatly. Sarai then consulted her husband about the matter who gave her permission to do with Hagar as she saw fit. Sarah dealt with her harshly, which resulted in Hagar fleeing from Abram’s settlement.
Hagar fled into the desert on her way to Shur
. En route, an angel of Yahweh
appeared to Hagar at the well of a spring. He instructed her to return to Sarai her mistress, so that she may bear a child who "shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." Then she was told to call her son: Ishmael. Afterward, Hagar referred to God as "El-roi
," meaning that she had gone on living after God saw her. From that day, the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. She then did as she was instructed by returning to Abram in order to have her child. When Abram was eighty-six years of age, Hagar gave birth to his firstborn son named Ishmael.
was born to Sarah (Sarai), the relationship between Hagar and her mistress had come to a climax. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah found the teenaged Ishmael mocking her son. She was so upset by it that she demanded from her husband, who was now referred to as Abraham
, to send Hagar and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed by his wife's words and sought the advice of his God. Yahweh
told Abraham not to be distressed but to do as his wife commanded because not only would Isaac carry the Abrahamic line, but also a nation would come from the line of Ishmael as well.
Early the next morning, Abraham brought Hagar and Ishmael out together. He released Hagar and her son from being slaves of their household. Hagar would now be a free woman, and Ishmael a free man as a teenager. Under Mesopotamian law, their freedom absolved them from laying claim to any inheritance that Abraham and Sarah had. Abraham gave Hagar bread and water for a journey into the wilderness of Beersheba
. She and her son wandered aimlessly until the bottle of water was completely consumed. In a moment of despair, she burst in tears. Her son then called to God and upon hearing him, an angel of Yahweh confirmed to Hagar that her son would become a great nation. A well of water then appeared so that it saved their lives. Hagar found her son a wife from her native home in the land of Egypt and they settled in the Desert of Paran
.
Genesis Rabbah states it was when Sarah was in Pharaoh's harem that he gave her his daughter Hagar as slave, saying: "It is better that my daughter should be a slave in the house of such a woman than mistress in another house"; Abimelech
acted likewise (16:2). Sarah treated Hagar well, and induced women who came to visit her to visit Hagar also. However Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarah, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her (ib. 16:9).
Some Jewish commentators identify Hagar with Keturah
, the woman Abraham married after the death of Sarah, stating that Abraham sought her out after Sarah's death. It is suggested that Keturah was Hagar's personal name, and that "Hagar" was a descriptive label meaning "stranger". This interpretation is discussed in the Midrash
and is supported by Rashi
, Gur Aryeh
, Keli Yakar, and Obadiah of Bertinoro. Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki) argues that "Keturah" was a name given to Hagar because her deeds were as beautiful as incense (hence: ketores), and/or that she remained chaste from the time she was separated from Abraham—keturah [ קְטוּרָה Q'turah ] derives from Aramaic word for restrained. The contrary view (that Keturah was someone other than Hagar) is advocated by Rashbam
, Abraham ibn Ezra
, Radak, and Ramban
. They were listed as two different people in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles
.
Ibrāhīm (Abraham
) and the mother of the prophet
Ismā'īl (Ishmael). Though not mentioned by name in the Qur'an
, she is referenced and alluded to via the story of her husband. She is a revered woman in the Islam
ic faith.
According to Muslim
belief, she was the Egyptian handmaiden
of Abraham's first wife Sara (Sarah
). She eventually settled in the Desert of Paran
with her son Ishmael. Hagar is honoured as an especially important matriarch of monotheism
, as it was through Ishmael that the prophet Muhammad
would come.
Neither Sarah nor Hagar are mentioned by name in the Qur'an, but the story is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Abraham's prayer in Sura Ibrahim
(14:37): "I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House
." While Hagar is not named, the reader lives Hagar's predicament indirectly through the eyes of Abraham. She is also frequently mentioned in the books of hadith
s.
According to Qisas Al-Anbiya
, a collection of tales about the prophets, Hagar was the daughter of the King of Maghreb, a descendant of the prophet Salih. Her father was killed by Pharaoh Dhu l-'arsh and she was captured and taken as slave. Later, because of her royal blood, she was made mistress of the female slaves and given access to all of Pharaoh's wealth. Upon conversion to Abraham's faith, the Pharaoh gave Hagar to Sarah who gave her to Abraham. In this account, the name "Hagar" (called Hajar in Arabic) comes from Ha ajruka, Arabic for "here is your recompense".
According to another tradition, Hagar was the daughter of the Egyptian king, who gifted her to Abraham as a wife, thinking Sarah was his sister. According to Ibn Abbas, Ishmael's birth to Hagar caused strife between her and Sarah, who was still barren. Abraham brought Hagar and their son to a land called Paran-aram or (Faran in Arabic, in latter days held to be the land surrounding Mecca). The objective of this journey was to "resettle" rather than "expel" Hagar. Abraham left Hagar and Ishmael under a tree and provided them with water. Hagar, learning that God had ordered Abraham to leave her in the desert of Paran, respected his decision. Muslims believe that God ordered Abraham to leave Hagar in order to test his obedience to God's commands.
Hagar soon ran out of water, and Ishmael began to die. Hagar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah
repeatedly in search for water. After her seventh run, Ishmael hit the ground with his heel and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground. This is called Zamzam Well
and is located a few metres from the Kaaba
in Mecca.
The incident of her running between the Al-Safa and Al-Marwah hills is remembered by Muslims when they perform their pilgrimage
(Hajj
) at Mecca. Part of the pilgrimage is to run seven times between the hills, in commemoration of Hagar's courage and to symbolize the celebration of mother
hood in Islam as well as the leadership of women. To complete the task, some Muslims also drink from the Zamzam Well and take some of the water back home from pilgrimage in memory of Hagar.
, which asserts that the story of Hagar is a complex allegory:
Paul has been interpreted by some to mean that Mount Sinai
was also called "Agar", and that it was named after Hagar. He links the laws of the Torah
, given on Mount Sinai, to the bondage of the Israelite people, implying that it was signified by Hagar's condition as a bondswoman, while the "free" heavenly Jerusalem is signified by Sarah and her child.
Saint Augustine developed this view, by saying that Hagar symbolised the earthly "city", or sinful condition of humanity: "In the earthly city (symbolised by Hagar) ... we find two things, its own obvious presence and the symbolic presence of the heavenly city. New citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin." (City of God 15:2) This view was developed by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas
and John Wycliffe
. The latter compared the children of Sarah to the redeemed, and those of Hagar to the unredeemed, who are "carnal by nature and mere exiles".
Paul's view was also used to link Hagar to Judaism, on the basis that the bondswoman Hagar represented bondage to the "old law", which the Christian dispensation had supplanted. In this respect Jews were seen – spiritually speaking – as descendants of Hagar, not Sarah. The equation of Jews with descendants of Hagar was also used to justify the subordination of Jews in medieval Christian kingdoms, and even their expulsion, on the model of the subjection and expulsion of Hagar.
Many artists have painted scenes from the story of Hagar and Ismael in the desert, including Pieter Lastman
, Gustave Doré
, Frederick Goodall
and James Eckford Lauder
.
William Shakespeare refers to Hagar in The Merchant of Venice
Act II Scene 4 line 40 when Shylock says "What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?". This line refers to the character Launcelot, who Shylock is insulting by comparing him to the outcast Ishmael. It also reverses the conventional Christian interpretation by portraying the Christian character as the outcast.
Hagar's destitution and desperation are used as an excuse for criminality by characters in the work of Daniel Defoe
, such as Moll Flanders
, and the conventional view of Hagar as the mother of outcasts is repeated in Samuel Taylor Coleridge
's play Zapolya, whose heroine is assured that she is "no Hagar's offspring; thou art the rightful heir to an appointed king."
In the nineteenth century a more sympathetic portrayal became prominent, especially in America. Edmonia Lewis
, the early African American
and Native American
sculptor, made Hagar the subject of one of her most well-known works. She said it was inspired by "strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered". In novels and poems Hagar herself, or characters named Hagar, were depicted as unjustly suffering exiles. These include the long dramatic poem Hagar by Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson (pen name
Pearl Rivers), president of the Women's National Press Association; Hagar in the Wilderness by Nathaniel Parker Willis
, the highest-paid magazine writer of his day; and Hagar's Farewell by Augusta Moore. In 1913 this was joined by the overtly feminist novel Hagar, by the American Southern socialist and suffragist Mary Johnston's.
A similarly sympathetic view prevails in more recent literature. The novel The Stone Angel
by Margaret Laurence
has a protagonist named Hagar married to a man named Bram, whose life story loosely imitates that of the biblical Hagar. A character named Hagar is prominently featured in Toni Morrison
's novel Song of Solomon
, which features numerous Biblical
themes and allusions. Hagar is mentioned briefly in Salman Rushdie's controversial novel The Satanic Verses
, where Mecca is replaced with 'Jahilia', a desert village built on sand and served by Hagar's spring. Hagar is held up as a role model in Margaret Atwood
's The Handmaid's Tale
, a dystopian novel which centres around the women whose duty it is to produce children for their masters, assuming the place of their wives. In the recent book of nonfiction, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths
, by Charlotte Gordon
provides an account of Hagar's life from the perspectives of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Nakba, being depicted as such by some Israeli writers and artists.
It was also the subject of a famous debate on the floor of the Knesset
between two women parliamentarians – Shulamit Aloni
, founder of Meretz (Civil Rights Movement) and Geula Cohen
of Tehiya (National Awakening Party) – who argued about the right interpretation which the Bible in general and Hagar's story in particular should be given in curriculum of Israeli schools.
Since the 1970s the custom has arisen of giving the name "Hagar" to newborn female babies. The giving of this name is often taken as a controversial political act, marking the parents as being left-leaning and supporters of reconciliation with the Palestinians and Arab World, and is frowned upon by many, including nationalists and the religious. The connotations of the name were represented by the founding of the Israeli journal Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities in 2000.
have written about Hagar, comparing her story to those of slaves in American history. Wilma Bailey, in an article entitled "Hagar: A Model for an Anabaptist Feminist", refers to her as a "maidservant" and "slave". She sees Hagar as a model of "power, skills, strength and drive". In the article "A Mistress, A Maid, and No Mercy", Renita Weems argues that the relationship between Sarah and Hagar exhibits "ethnic prejudice exacerbated by economic and social exploitation". According to Susanne Scholz,
or contractual gestation. Critics of this and other assisted reproductive technologies
have used Hagar in their analysis. As early as 1988, Anna Goldman-Amirav in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering wrote of Hagar within "the Biblical 'battle of the wombs' [which] lay the foundation for the view of women, fertility, and sexuality in the patriarchal society". Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, as mentioned in a previous section, takes this feminist analysis into a futuristic dystopia.
Jewish tradition
Abrahamic religions
Abrahamic religions are the monotheistic faiths emphasizing and tracing their common origin to Abraham or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him...
, was the second wife of Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, and the mother of his first son, Ishmael
Ishmael
Ishmael is a figure in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, and was Abraham's first born child according to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Ishmael was born of Abraham's marriage to Sarah's handmaiden Hagar...
. Her story is recorded in the Book of Genesis, mentioned in Hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
, and alluded to in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
. Hagar's son, Ishmael, is the patriarch of the Ishmaelites
Ishmaelites
According to the Book of Genesis, Ishmaelites are the descendants of Ishmael, the elder son of Abraham.-Traditional Origins:According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham's first wife was named Sarah and his second wife Hagar. However Sarah was old and barren, and could not conceive...
.
Hagar in Genesis
This is a summary of the account of Hagar fromHagar and Abram
Hagar was an Egyptian handmaiden of Sarai, the first wife of Abram, who served her mistress less than ten years since coming out of EgyptAncient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
. Hagar was offered, by her mistress, to Abram to be as a second “wife”. Sarai presented this offering to her husband because she had been barren for so long and sought a way to fulfill God
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
's promise, especially since they were getting older.
When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Sarai sensed her slave's attitude which caused her to suffer greatly. Sarai then consulted her husband about the matter who gave her permission to do with Hagar as she saw fit. Sarah dealt with her harshly, which resulted in Hagar fleeing from Abram’s settlement.
Hagar fled into the desert on her way to Shur
Shur (Bible)
Shur is a location mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. When Hagar flees from Abraham, the Angel of the Lord find her by a "spring on the way to Shur." .According to Exodus 15:22, Marah is located in the "wilderness of Shur."...
. En route, an angel of Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
appeared to Hagar at the well of a spring. He instructed her to return to Sarai her mistress, so that she may bear a child who "shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." Then she was told to call her son: Ishmael. Afterward, Hagar referred to God as "El-roi
El Roi
El Roi is one of the biblical names of God represented by the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew and Christian Bible:As with El Bethel, El 'Olam, El Shaddai, El Berith, Elohim and numerous other formations in the Bible as translated into English, El Roi is a descriptive epithet for God using the word "El" for...
," meaning that she had gone on living after God saw her. From that day, the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. She then did as she was instructed by returning to Abram in order to have her child. When Abram was eighty-six years of age, Hagar gave birth to his firstborn son named Ishmael.
Hagar freed
When IsaacIsaac
Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
was born to Sarah (Sarai), the relationship between Hagar and her mistress had come to a climax. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah found the teenaged Ishmael mocking her son. She was so upset by it that she demanded from her husband, who was now referred to as Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, to send Hagar and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed by his wife's words and sought the advice of his God. Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
told Abraham not to be distressed but to do as his wife commanded because not only would Isaac carry the Abrahamic line, but also a nation would come from the line of Ishmael as well.
Early the next morning, Abraham brought Hagar and Ishmael out together. He released Hagar and her son from being slaves of their household. Hagar would now be a free woman, and Ishmael a free man as a teenager. Under Mesopotamian law, their freedom absolved them from laying claim to any inheritance that Abraham and Sarah had. Abraham gave Hagar bread and water for a journey into the wilderness of Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
. She and her son wandered aimlessly until the bottle of water was completely consumed. In a moment of despair, she burst in tears. Her son then called to God and upon hearing him, an angel of Yahweh confirmed to Hagar that her son would become a great nation. A well of water then appeared so that it saved their lives. Hagar found her son a wife from her native home in the land of Egypt and they settled in the Desert of Paran
Desert of Paran
The Desert of Paran or Wilderness of Paran , is the place in which the Hebrew Bible says the Israelites spent part of their 40 years of wandering: Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran...
.
Rabbinical commentary
Rabbinical commentators asserted that Hagar was "Pharaoh's daughter". The midrashMidrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
Genesis Rabbah states it was when Sarah was in Pharaoh's harem that he gave her his daughter Hagar as slave, saying: "It is better that my daughter should be a slave in the house of such a woman than mistress in another house"; Abimelech
Abimelech
Abimelech was a common name of the Philistine kings.Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis...
acted likewise (16:2). Sarah treated Hagar well, and induced women who came to visit her to visit Hagar also. However Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarah, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her (ib. 16:9).
Some Jewish commentators identify Hagar with Keturah
Keturah
According to the Hebrew Bible, Keturah or Ketura was the woman whom Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites, married after the death of his wife, Sarah. Keturah bore Abraham six sons, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah....
, the woman Abraham married after the death of Sarah, stating that Abraham sought her out after Sarah's death. It is suggested that Keturah was Hagar's personal name, and that "Hagar" was a descriptive label meaning "stranger". This interpretation is discussed in the Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
and is supported by Rashi
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
, Gur Aryeh
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew," was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in the city of...
, Keli Yakar, and Obadiah of Bertinoro. Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki) argues that "Keturah" was a name given to Hagar because her deeds were as beautiful as incense (hence: ketores), and/or that she remained chaste from the time she was separated from Abraham—keturah [ קְטוּרָה Q'turah ] derives from Aramaic word for restrained. The contrary view (that Keturah was someone other than Hagar) is advocated by Rashbam
Rashbam
Samuel ben Meir after his death known as "Rashbam", a Hebrew acronym for: RAbbi SHmuel Ben Meir, was a leading French Tosafist and grandson of Shlomo Yitzhaki, "Rashi."-Biography:...
, Abraham ibn Ezra
Abraham ibn Ezra
Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was born at Tudela, Navarre in 1089, and died c. 1167, apparently in Calahorra....
, Radak, and Ramban
Nahmanides
Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...
. They were listed as two different people in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles
Books of Chronicles
The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...
.
Hagar in Islamic traditions
Hājar (Arabic: هاجر), is the Arabic name used to identify the wife of the Islamic prophetProphets of Islam
Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
Ibrāhīm (Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
) and the mother of the prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
Ismā'īl (Ishmael). Though not mentioned by name in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
, she is referenced and alluded to via the story of her husband. She is a revered woman in the Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic faith.
According to Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
belief, she was the Egyptian handmaiden
Handmaiden
A handmaiden is a female attendant, assistant, domestic worker , or slave.-Religion:Norse goddesses had handmaidens, . The biblical Mary referred to herself as "the handmaid of the Lord" in acceptance of becoming pregnant by the Holy Ghost.A man might use a handmaiden as a concubine to bear his...
of Abraham's first wife Sara (Sarah
Sarah
Sarah or Sara was the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Her name was originally Sarai...
). She eventually settled in the Desert of Paran
Desert of Paran
The Desert of Paran or Wilderness of Paran , is the place in which the Hebrew Bible says the Israelites spent part of their 40 years of wandering: Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran...
with her son Ishmael. Hagar is honoured as an especially important matriarch of monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
, as it was through Ishmael that the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
would come.
Neither Sarah nor Hagar are mentioned by name in the Qur'an, but the story is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Abraham's prayer in Sura Ibrahim
Ibrahim (sura)
Sura Ibrahim is the 14th sura of the Qur'an with 52 ayat. It is a Makkan sura....
(14:37): "I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House
Kaaba
The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
." While Hagar is not named, the reader lives Hagar's predicament indirectly through the eyes of Abraham. She is also frequently mentioned in the books of hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
s.
According to Qisas Al-Anbiya
Qisas Al-Anbiya
The "Qasas Al-Anbiya" or Stories of the Prophets is any of various collections of tales adapted from the Quran and other Islamic literature, closely related to exegesis of the Qur'an. One of the best-known is that composed by Kisa'i in either the 6th or the 13th century; others include the Ara'is...
, a collection of tales about the prophets, Hagar was the daughter of the King of Maghreb, a descendant of the prophet Salih. Her father was killed by Pharaoh Dhu l-'arsh and she was captured and taken as slave. Later, because of her royal blood, she was made mistress of the female slaves and given access to all of Pharaoh's wealth. Upon conversion to Abraham's faith, the Pharaoh gave Hagar to Sarah who gave her to Abraham. In this account, the name "Hagar" (called Hajar in Arabic) comes from Ha ajruka, Arabic for "here is your recompense".
According to another tradition, Hagar was the daughter of the Egyptian king, who gifted her to Abraham as a wife, thinking Sarah was his sister. According to Ibn Abbas, Ishmael's birth to Hagar caused strife between her and Sarah, who was still barren. Abraham brought Hagar and their son to a land called Paran-aram or (Faran in Arabic, in latter days held to be the land surrounding Mecca). The objective of this journey was to "resettle" rather than "expel" Hagar. Abraham left Hagar and Ishmael under a tree and provided them with water. Hagar, learning that God had ordered Abraham to leave her in the desert of Paran, respected his decision. Muslims believe that God ordered Abraham to leave Hagar in order to test his obedience to God's commands.
Hagar soon ran out of water, and Ishmael began to die. Hagar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah
Al-Safa and Al-Marwah
Al-Safa and Al-Marwah are two small mountains now located in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia between which Muslims travel back and forth seven times during the ritual pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah.-History:...
repeatedly in search for water. After her seventh run, Ishmael hit the ground with his heel and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground. This is called Zamzam Well
Zamzam Well
The Well of Zamzam is a well located within the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, east of the Kaaba, the holiest place in Islam...
and is located a few metres from the Kaaba
Kaaba
The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...
in Mecca.
The incident of her running between the Al-Safa and Al-Marwah hills is remembered by Muslims when they perform their pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
(Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
) at Mecca. Part of the pilgrimage is to run seven times between the hills, in commemoration of Hagar's courage and to symbolize the celebration of mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
hood in Islam as well as the leadership of women. To complete the task, some Muslims also drink from the Zamzam Well and take some of the water back home from pilgrimage in memory of Hagar.
Christian view
Christian commentary on Hagar begins with Paul the Apostle's Epistle to the GalatiansEpistle to the Galatians
The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia...
, which asserts that the story of Hagar is a complex allegory:
Paul has been interpreted by some to mean that Mount Sinai
Biblical Mount Sinai
The Biblical Mount Sinai is the mountain at which the Book of Exodus states that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God...
was also called "Agar", and that it was named after Hagar. He links the laws of the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
, given on Mount Sinai, to the bondage of the Israelite people, implying that it was signified by Hagar's condition as a bondswoman, while the "free" heavenly Jerusalem is signified by Sarah and her child.
Saint Augustine developed this view, by saying that Hagar symbolised the earthly "city", or sinful condition of humanity: "In the earthly city (symbolised by Hagar) ... we find two things, its own obvious presence and the symbolic presence of the heavenly city. New citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin." (City of God 15:2) This view was developed by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
and John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached...
. The latter compared the children of Sarah to the redeemed, and those of Hagar to the unredeemed, who are "carnal by nature and mere exiles".
Paul's view was also used to link Hagar to Judaism, on the basis that the bondswoman Hagar represented bondage to the "old law", which the Christian dispensation had supplanted. In this respect Jews were seen – spiritually speaking – as descendants of Hagar, not Sarah. The equation of Jews with descendants of Hagar was also used to justify the subordination of Jews in medieval Christian kingdoms, and even their expulsion, on the model of the subjection and expulsion of Hagar.
Arts and literature
Pieter Lastman
Pieter Lastman was a Dutch painter . Lastman is considered important because of his work as a painter of history pieces and because his pupils included Rembrandt and Jan Lievens...
, Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...
, Frederick Goodall
Frederick Goodall
Frederick Goodall was an English artist.Goodall was born in London, England in 1822, the second son of steel line engraver Edward Goodall . He received his education at the Wellington Road Academy....
and James Eckford Lauder
James Eckford Lauder
James Eckford Lauder was a notable mid-Victorian Scottish artist, famous for both portraits and historical pictures....
.
William Shakespeare refers to Hagar in The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
Act II Scene 4 line 40 when Shylock says "What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?". This line refers to the character Launcelot, who Shylock is insulting by comparing him to the outcast Ishmael. It also reverses the conventional Christian interpretation by portraying the Christian character as the outcast.
Hagar's destitution and desperation are used as an excuse for criminality by characters in the work of Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, such as Moll Flanders
Moll Flanders
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722, after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719...
, and the conventional view of Hagar as the mother of outcasts is repeated in Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
's play Zapolya, whose heroine is assured that she is "no Hagar's offspring; thou art the rightful heir to an appointed king."
In the nineteenth century a more sympathetic portrayal became prominent, especially in America. Edmonia Lewis
Edmonia Lewis
Mary Edmonia Lewis was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor in the international fine arts world...
, the early African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
and Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
sculptor, made Hagar the subject of one of her most well-known works. She said it was inspired by "strong sympathy for all women who have struggled and suffered". In novels and poems Hagar herself, or characters named Hagar, were depicted as unjustly suffering exiles. These include the long dramatic poem Hagar by Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson (pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Pearl Rivers), president of the Women's National Press Association; Hagar in the Wilderness by Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis
Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...
, the highest-paid magazine writer of his day; and Hagar's Farewell by Augusta Moore. In 1913 this was joined by the overtly feminist novel Hagar, by the American Southern socialist and suffragist Mary Johnston's.
A similarly sympathetic view prevails in more recent literature. The novel The Stone Angel
The Stone Angel
The Stone Angel, first published in 1964 by McClelland and Stewart, is perhaps the best-known of Margaret Laurence's series of novels set in the fictitious town of Manawaka, Manitoba. In parallel narratives set in the past and the present-day , The Stone Angel tells the story of Hagar Currie Shipley...
by Margaret Laurence
Margaret Laurence
Jean Margaret Laurence, CC was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, one of the major figures in Canadian literature.- Early years :...
has a protagonist named Hagar married to a man named Bram, whose life story loosely imitates that of the biblical Hagar. A character named Hagar is prominently featured in Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
's novel Song of Solomon
Song of Solomon
The Song of Songs of Solomon, commonly referred to as Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible—one of the megillot —found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim...
, which features numerous Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
themes and allusions. Hagar is mentioned briefly in Salman Rushdie's controversial novel The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters...
, where Mecca is replaced with 'Jahilia', a desert village built on sand and served by Hagar's spring. Hagar is held up as a role model in Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
's The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction, written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985...
, a dystopian novel which centres around the women whose duty it is to produce children for their masters, assuming the place of their wives. In the recent book of nonfiction, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths
Charlotte Gordon
Charlotte Gordon is an American writer and assistant professor of English at Endicott College. She was born in St.Louis, Missouri in 1962, received her B.A in English and American Literature from Harvard College...
, by Charlotte Gordon
Charlotte Gordon
Charlotte Gordon is an American writer and assistant professor of English at Endicott College. She was born in St.Louis, Missouri in 1962, received her B.A in English and American Literature from Harvard College...
provides an account of Hagar's life from the perspectives of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Israel
The story of Hagar's expulsion to the desert has acquired some political connotations in modern Israel, being taken up as a symbol of the PalestinianPalestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
Nakba, being depicted as such by some Israeli writers and artists.
It was also the subject of a famous debate on the floor of the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
between two women parliamentarians – Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni is an Israeli politician and left-wing activist. She is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp, founded the Ratz party and was leader of the Meretz party and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993.-Biography:...
, founder of Meretz (Civil Rights Movement) and Geula Cohen
Geula Cohen
Geulah Cohen is an Israeli former Irgun and Lehi member, politician, and journalist.-Biography:Geulah Cohen was born in Tel Aviv during the British Mandate of Palestine...
of Tehiya (National Awakening Party) – who argued about the right interpretation which the Bible in general and Hagar's story in particular should be given in curriculum of Israeli schools.
Since the 1970s the custom has arisen of giving the name "Hagar" to newborn female babies. The giving of this name is often taken as a controversial political act, marking the parents as being left-leaning and supporters of reconciliation with the Palestinians and Arab World, and is frowned upon by many, including nationalists and the religious. The connotations of the name were represented by the founding of the Israeli journal Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities in 2000.
African-Americans
Several black American feministsBlack feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression. The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would...
have written about Hagar, comparing her story to those of slaves in American history. Wilma Bailey, in an article entitled "Hagar: A Model for an Anabaptist Feminist", refers to her as a "maidservant" and "slave". She sees Hagar as a model of "power, skills, strength and drive". In the article "A Mistress, A Maid, and No Mercy", Renita Weems argues that the relationship between Sarah and Hagar exhibits "ethnic prejudice exacerbated by economic and social exploitation". According to Susanne Scholz,
Assisted reproduction
Hagar bearing a child for an infertile woman is an example of what we now call surrogacySurrogacy
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person. This woman may be the child's genetic mother , or she may carry the pregnancy to delivery after having an embryo, to which she has no genetic relationship whatsoever, transferred to her uterus...
or contractual gestation. Critics of this and other assisted reproductive technologies
Assisted reproductive technology
Assisted reproductive technology is a general term referring to methods used to achieve pregnancy by artificial or partially artificial means. It is reproductive technology used primarily in infertility treatments. Some forms of ART are also used in fertile couples for genetic reasons...
have used Hagar in their analysis. As early as 1988, Anna Goldman-Amirav in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering wrote of Hagar within "the Biblical 'battle of the wombs' [which] lay the foundation for the view of women, fertility, and sexuality in the patriarchal society". Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, as mentioned in a previous section, takes this feminist analysis into a futuristic dystopia.
See also
- Abram and Hagar
- Abraham and Ishmael
Jewish tradition
- Parashat Lekh LekhaLech-LechaLech-Lecha, Lekh-Lekha, or Lech-L'cha is the third weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis Jews read it on the third Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in October or November....
- Parashat VayeraVayeiraVayeira, Vayera, or Va-yera is the fourth weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis Jews read it on the fourth Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in October or November....