and called out to him from the right side of the valley, at the blessed spot, from the tree that grows there. He also swore by the Secure City—that is, Mecca, where Abraham lodged Ishmael and his mother. This land, as noted earlier, is Fārān. Because the Torah relates these events as historical report, it presented them in chronological order, mentioning first what occurred earliest and then what followed.

The Qur’an, however, swore by the same locations to exalt their rank and to display His power, His signs, His scriptures, and His messengers. It did so step by step, moving from a lofty level to one still loftier and then to the loftiest of all; for the most honored of the revealed books is the Qur’an, followed by the Torah and then the Gospel—and the same applies to the three prophets (1).

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What Ibn Qutaybah and other Muslim scholars have stated is confirmed by the Torah itself for anyone who studies it carefully (2). It reads:

“Abraham rose early, took the boy, some bread, and a skin of water, and placed them on Hagar’s shoulder. He said to her, ‘Go.’ Hagar set off, but when the water was finished she laid the boy under a tree and sat facing him at a bowshot’s distance so as not to watch the child die. She lifted up her voice and wept. God heard the voice of the boy where he was, and the angel said to her, ‘Rise, pick up the boy and hold him fast, for I shall make of him a great nation.’ God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; she gave the boy a drink and filled her waterskin. God was with the boy; he grew up and settled in the wilderness of Fārān” (3).

This is the explicit wording of the Torah: Ishmael was raised and lived in the wilderness of Fārān after