twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams, thirty milch camels, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys. He ordered his servants to drive each kind as a separate herd and to leave a distance between one herd and the next. He instructed them: “When Esau meets you and asks, ‘Whose men are you, and whose animals are these you are driving?’ let the first of you answer, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; he has sent them as a gift to my lord Esau, and he himself is coming behind us.’ The second is to say the same, and so is every man after him, adding, ‘He is following behind us.’
Jacob himself remained two days behind everyone else, together with his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons. He travelled by night and hid by day. At dawn on the second night an angel appeared to him in the form of a man. Jacob took him for an ordinary human being and went up to wrestle with him. Jacob seemed to prevail, but the angel touched his hip and he began to limp. When daybreak came the angel said, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” The angel said, “From today you shall not be called that; your name shall be Israel.” Jacob asked, “Who are you, and what is your name?” but the angel vanished, and Jacob realized that he had been an angel. At sunrise Jacob was still limping; for this reason the Children of Israel do not eat the sciatic nerve.
Jacob looked up and saw his brother Esau approaching with four hundred men. He went on ahead of his family, and when he saw Esau he bowed to him seven times—their customary greeting at that time, permissible for them, just as the angels bowed to Adam in greeting and as Joseph’s brothers and parents will later bow to him. When Esau saw him he ran forward, embraced him, kissed him, and wept.
Esau lifted his eyes and saw the women and children. He asked, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom Allah has graciously granted to your servant.” The two maidservants and their children stepped forward and bowed, then Leah and her children bowed, and finally Rachel and her son Joseph bowed low before him. Jacob pressed Esau to accept the present, urging him until he did so, whereupon Esau turned back. Jacob followed after him with his livestock and servants, heading toward the mountains of Seir.
Passing through Sahur, Jacob built a house for himself and shelters for his cattle. He then came to Jerusalem, the town of Shechem, and camped outside it. He bought the field of Shechem son of Hamor for one hundred ewes, pitched his tent there, and built an altar, naming it ‘El, the God of Israel,’ for Allah had commanded him to build it so that He might reveal Himself there. This is the Sacred House—Bayt al-Maqdis—that Solomon son of David, peace be upon them, later rebuilt. It stands on the very Rock that Jacob had earlier marked by pouring oil upon it, as we mentioned at the outset.
[The People of the Book relate here the story of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter by Leah, and what befell her with Shechem son of Hamor, who violated her, took her to his house, and then sought her in marriage from her father and brothers. The brothers replied, “We will not marry her to you unless all of you are circumcised, for we do not intermarry with the uncircumcised.” They agreed and all underwent circumcision. On the third day, when their pain was at its height, the sons of Jacob attacked them and killed them to the last man, and they put to death