and I would never cease to live beside him, remaining his neighbour until death parted us.”

The angel said, “That servant is you.”

Abraham asked, “Me?”

He replied, “Yes.”

“So for what reason did my Lord take me as an intimate friend?”

“Because you give to people and never ask anything of them.” Ibn Abī Ḥātim narrated this report (1).

Allah, Exalted is He, mentions Abraham many times in the Qur’an, praising and commending him. It is said (2) that his name appears in thirty-five places, fifteen of them in Sūrat al-Baqarah alone.

He is one of the five Messengers endowed with resolute determination (ūlū l-ʿazm) whose names are singled out from the rest of the prophets in two verses—one in al-Aḥzāb and one in al-Shūrā:

“And recall when We took from the prophets their covenant—and from you [O Muḥammad], and from Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, son of Mary; and We took from them a solemn covenant” (al-Aḥzāb 33:7);

“He has ordained for you in religion what He enjoined upon Noah, and that which We have revealed to you, and what We enjoined upon Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Establish the religion and do not be divided therein” (al-Shūrā 42:13).

After Muḥammad ﷺ, Abraham is the most honoured of these Messengers of firm resolve. During the Night Journey the Prophet ﷺ met him in the seventh heaven, reclining against al-Bayt al-Maʿmūr, into which seventy thousand angels enter each day and never return again.

The version of the Isrāʾ related by Shurayk ibn Abī Namir from Anas—placing Abraham in the sixth heaven and Moses in the seventh (3)—is one of the points for which Shurayk’s narration has been criticised; the sound report is the first.

Aḥmad (4) relates—through Muḥammad ibn Bishr, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The noble, son of the noble, son of the noble, son of the noble is Joseph son of Jacob son of Isaac son of Abraham, the Friend of the Most Merciful.” Aḥmad alone records this wording (5).

Another proof that Abraham is, on the sound view, superior to Moses is the ḥadīth in which the Prophet ﷺ said: “I deferred the third supplication for the Day when all creation—even Abraham—will turn to me.” Muslim transmitted it from Ubayy ibn Kaʿb (6).

This is the Praiseworthy Station of which he, blessings and peace be upon him, spoke when he said, “I am the master of the children of Adam on the Day of Resurrection, without boast.” He then mentioned that the people will seek intercession from Adam, then Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, then Jesus—each of them will decline—until they come to Muḥammad ﷺ, and he will say, “I am for it, I am for it,” … the ḥadīth (7).