Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

10 t CHAPTER ONE
high. Abraham too had a book, as we have just seen, but that is
not his importance. Abraham, who “paid his debt” (53:37) and
whom God himself made his “friend” (4:125), stands at the head
of the file of believers in the One True God. He was already a
muslim, a “submitter,” and a hanif (3:67). The latter is a somewhat
mysterious word, but since the Quran frequently glosses it
with the expression “he was not one of the idolaters,” hanif may
reasonably be understood as “monotheist.”
For all his obvious significance, the Quran’s message regarding
Abraham is, like the Bible’s own, somewhat mixed. The narrative
passages on the patriarch put great stress on his repudiation of his
father’s and relatives’ pagan idolatry (so, for example, 6:75–79;
26:72–80), and yet, when the outlines of a theology of Abraham
emerge—and they are no more than an outline—Abraham merits
well of his God because he has been tested and not found wanting
(2:124). The test was no less than God’s command to Abraham to
sacrifice his unnamed son (37:102–107). Thus, it was by reason of
Abraham’s obedience in this matter that God had established his
Covenant (ahd) with the man who is now his friend, a contract
that will extend to Abraham’s descendants (2:128, 132).
The Bible’s own account of the Covenant gives grounds for
thinking that either Abraham’s “submission,” that is, his adherence
to the One True God, or his extraordinary act of obedience
(or perhaps both) was the reason for the concordat. The two rival
groups of Abraham’s children later strenuously debated whether it
was, as the rabbis maintained, Abraham’s obedience—the “binding
of Isaac” became a powerful motif in Jewish circles—or, as
Paul and the Christians argued, the patriarch’s faith that rendered
him just in God’s eyes. The Quran sounds no discernible echo of
that dispute and credits both Abraham’s belief and his obedience,
though there is a manifestly greater interest in the story of his
breaking free of the idolatry of his kinsmen.
What was truly revolutionary in the covenant offered to Abraham,
and later in more detail to Moses, was its exclusivity clause.
Abraham and his descendants were to worship no other god, to
pay no dues, to give no respect, honor, or even acknowledgment to