“…among the righteous.” (al-Anbiyāʾ 21:85-86)

The Exalted also says:
“Indeed, We have revealed to you just as We revealed to Noah and the prophets after him; and We revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes…” (al-Nisāʾ 4:163)

And He says:
“Say, ‘We believe in Allah, and in what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes…’” (al-Baqarah 2:136 and its counterpart in another sūrah)

And He says:
“Or do you claim that Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes were Jews or Christians? Say, ‘Are you more knowledgeable, or is Allah?’” (al-Baqarah 2:140)

Thus Allah has ascribed to Ishmael every praiseworthy quality, made him His prophet and messenger, cleared him of all that the ignorant attribute to him, and commanded the believers to have faith in what was revealed to him.

Genealogists and chroniclers state that he was the first to ride horses. Formerly they were wild beasts, but he domesticated and mounted them.

Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā al-Umawī relates in his work on the campaigns:
“A shaykh of Quraysh told us, reporting from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

‘Keep horses and ride them, for they are the legacy of your father Ishmael.’ (1)

These noble horses had been untamed; he invoked upon them a supplication that had been granted to him, and they responded.

He was also the first to speak eloquent, classical Arabic. He learned it from the original Arabs who had settled around Mecca—Jurhum, the Amalekites, and the Yemenite tribes who preceded the Friend, Abraham.

Al-Umawī reports:
‘ʿAlī ibn al-Mughīrah told us, reporting from Abū ʿUbaydah, from Mismaʿ ibn Mālik, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, from his forefathers, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“The first person whose tongue was loosened with clear Arabic was Ishmael, when he was fourteen years old.” (2)

Yūnus said to him, “You have spoken truly, Abū Sayyār; this is exactly what Abū Jurrayy related to me.”

We have already mentioned that when he came of age he married a woman from the Amalekites and that his father ordered him to leave her, so he divorced her. Al-Umawī says she was ʿImārah bint Saʿd ibn Usāmah ibn Akīl al-ʿAmālīqī (3). He then married another, whom his father told him to keep: al-Sayyidah bint Muḍāḍ ibn ʿAmr al-Jurhumī. It is also said that she was his third wife.

She bore him twelve sons, all males, whose names Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq—may Allah have mercy on him—recorded as: Nābit, Qaydar, Azbil, Mīshā, Masmaʿ, Māsh, Dawsā, Āzar, Yatūr, Nabsh, Ṭīmā, and Qaydhum. (4)

The People of the Book also mention them in their scripture, asserting that they are the twelve chieftains foretold earlier, but they erred in their interpretation of that prophecy.