Response to Sam Shamoun’s ​“Ish­mael Is Not The Father of Muhammad”

The mis­sion­ary Sam Shamoun has claimed that there is a dis­crepen­cy in the tra­di­tions of Ish­mael^(P) being the ances­tor of the Arabs and hence he^(P) can­not be the father of Muham­mad^(P), as per the record of Mus­lim tra­di­tions. We aim to respond to this lat­est mis­sion­ary polemic and at the same time we would like to address the abuse of this mis­sion­ary’s cita­tion from the trans­la­tion of Ibn Ishaq’s Sir­at Rasul Allah, insha’al­lah.

Refu­ta­tion to the Hypothesis

The mis­sion­ary would like us to believe that the Arabs have no ances­tral link to the Prophet Abra­ham^(P) and his son, Ish­mael^(P). The real­i­ty is that sci­en­tists today have found a genet­ic link between the Arabs and the Jews, and hence this ver­i­fies the tra­di­tions that informs us that the Semit­ic peo­ple share a com­mon ances­tor. We read that :

…They found that group­ing Jews and Arabs togeth­er — both are Semi­tes — is based on genet­ic and well as his­tor­i­cal and lin­guis­tic real­i­ty.ABC­News, Jews, Arabs are brothers,
genet­ic study shows[Online Doc­u­ment]

This is fur­ther con­firmed when in the Jour­nal of Baby­lon­ian Exi­lArch, we are told that :

Jews and Arabs are extreme­ly close­ly relat­ed, a new genet­ic sur­vey has shown.

Wher­ev­er in the world they now live, Jew­ish men car­ry the same Y chro­mo­some as Pales­tini­ans, Syr­i­ans and Lebanese.

“Jews and Arabs are all real­ly chil­dren of Abra­ham and all have pre­served their Mid­dle East­ern genet­ic roots over 4,000 years,” said one of the sci­en­tists involved. Har­ry Ostr­er, direc­tor of the Human Genet­ics Pro­gramme at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. The team analysed regions of the Y chro­mo­some in 1,371 men from 29 pop­u­la­tions world­wide. The Y chro­mo­some pass­es large­ly unchanged down the male line. 

The results, pub­lished in Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, show that the dif­fer­ence between Jew­ish and Arab pop­u­la­tions is extreme­ly small, con­sid­er­ably small­er than that between North and South African pop­u­la­tions, for exam­ple. The study con­firms that both Arabs and Jews owe their genes to a com­mon ances­tor pop­u­la­tion that pre­dat­ed the Jew­ish reli­gion.The Times (9 May 2000), Jews and Arabs Unit­ed by Genes, The Jour­nal of Baby­lon­ian Exi­lArch [Online Document]

Hence it is clear that mod­ern sci­en­tif­ic research con­duct­ed today has shown that the Arabs and the Jews are the descen­dants of Abra­ham^(P) and hence we find it ludi­crous to see the mis­sion­ary deny­ing this sci­en­tif­ic evidence.

The mis­sion­ary had con­stant­ly relied on a spu­ri­ous quote from one W. Aliyyud­din Sha­reef, where­by it is claimed that the pre-Islam­ic Arabs do not recog­nise Ish­mael^(P) as the Father of the Arabs. On the con­trary, a study of pre-Islam­ic poet­ry and Arab genealog­i­cal records pro­vides one with con­vinc­ing evi­dence that Ish­mael^(P) is indeed recog­nised as the Father of the Arabs. 

For instance a pre-Islam­ic poet ​‘Umaiya b. Abi as-Saltcf. F. Sez­gin : ​“GAS”, Band ii, seite 298 – 300, Lei­den 1975 wrote a long ode in which he talks about Abra­ham^(P) and his love for his ​“first-born”, i.e. Ish­mael^(P). One of his vers­es is :

Bakrahu lam yakun laiyas­bar unh aw yurahu fi ma’sh­er al-aqtaal 
(The sac­ri­fice) of his first-born of whose sep­a­ra­tion he (Abra­ham) could not bear nei­ther could he see him sur­round­ed in foes.

Here, this pre-Islam­ic Arab poet clear­ly points to Ish­mael^(P) as the first-born of Abra­ham^(P) and to his sacrifice. 

Like­wise to fur­ther strength­en our point, here is what A. J. Wensinck has to say in this regard :

Ish­ma’il is also con­sid­ered the ances­tor of the North Ara­bi­an tribes. In the Arab genealo­gies, the Arabs are divid­ed into three groups : al-Ba’i­da (those who have dis­ap­peared), al-‘ariba (the indige­nous) and al-mus­ta’ri­ba (the ara­bi­cised). Ish­ma’il is con­sid­ered the prog­en­i­tor of the last group, whose ances­tor is Adnan.​“Isma’il” in Ency­clo­pe­dia of Islam, 2nd ed., Lei­den 1954

Fur­ther, we also read the fol­low­ing cita­tion from Gesenius :

H. W. F. Gese­nius, Gese­nius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lex­i­con, p. 724

The mis­sion­ary has kind­ly pro­vid­ed us with the geneal­o­gy of the Prophet Muham­mad^(P) in his arti­cle. We repro­duce it here to facil­i­tate eas­i­er elu­ci­da­tion of the matter.

Prophet Muham­mad- Abdul­lah- Abd Al Mut­tal­ib- Hashim- Abd Man­af- Qusaiy- Kilab (Ances­tor of the Holy Prophet’s moth­er)- Mur­rah- Ka’b. Lu’ayy- Ghal­ib- Fihr- Malik- Al Nadr- Kinanah- Khuzaiymah- Mudrikah- Ilyas- Mudar- Nizar- Madd- ​‘Adnan- Adad- Zayd- Yaq­dud- Al Muqawwam- Al Yasa’- Nabt- Qaidar (Kedar)- Prophet Ismail (Alai­hi Salaam)- Prophet Ibrahim (Alai­hi Salaam)

Thus, it is clear that even with­in the Jew­ish tra­di­tions, Kedar, the son of Ish­mael^(P) and the father of ​‘Adnan is exclu­sive­ly linked to the Arabs. Indeed, until this very day, Mus­lims recite the fol­low­ing prayer in wor­ship, as follows :

O Allah ! Send Your Mer­cy on Muham­mad and on his fam­i­ly [wives and his off­spring], as You sent Your Mer­cy on Abra­ham’s fam­i­ly ; and send Your Bless­ings on Muham­mad and his fam­i­ly , as You sent Your Bless­ings on Abra­ham’s fam­i­ly, in the world, for You are the Most Praise-wor­thy, the Most Glo­ri­ous. al-Hafiz Imam Ibnu Hajar al-‘Asqalaniy, Kitab Bulughul Maram, hadith no. 336

Need­less to men­tion, we sus­pect that it is prob­a­bly the mis­sion­ary’s inher­ent jeal­ousy of how Mus­lims hon­our the Prophet Abra­ham^(P) and his fam­i­ly which has prob­a­bly spurred his per­ju­ri­ous claim in the first place !

Ibn Ishaq’s Sir­at Rasul Allah : Use and Abuse of Evidence

The mis­sion­ary, as it is fre­quent through­out his writ­ings, has again appealed to A. Guilaume’s trans­la­tion of Ibn Ishaq’s Sir­at Rasul Allah, specif­i­cal­ly, the out­line of the geneal­o­gyA. Guilaume, The Life of Muham­mad : A Trans­la­tion of Ibn Ishaq’s Sir­at Rasul Allah (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1978), p. 3 – 4. In the near future, we aim to record the num­ber of the mis­use and abuse of this work by the missionary. 

In the mean­time, how­ev­er, let us address this spe­cif­ic claim of this mis­sion­ary regard­ing the genealog­i­cal sources. 

His alle­ga­tion is that :

There are sev­er­al prob­lems with these genealo­gies. The first prob­lem is the time span.

He then pro­ceeds to cite from an athe­ist source, which is an inher­ent dis­ease in the mis­sion­ary agen­da. The prob­lem with cit­ing this source is that if this sys­tem is effec­tive­ly applied to the mis­sion­ary’s own Bible, his Bible will also fall under exam­i­na­tion. This is because if his source’s point is valid, it deals a much more heav­ier blow to Chris­tian­i­ty than it does to Islam. 

The crit­i­cism he quot­ed from the athe­ist source fits just as eas­i­ly on the Bib­li­cal account as well, so if he agrees with his source, he would have to agree with the absur­di­ty of his own Bible. The dat­ing sys­tem is still very much the same.

In oth­er words, if the source that the mis­sion­ary Shamoun cites is cor­rect, then the genealo­gies as they stand now are fab­ri­ca­tions, so Mus­lims would have to throw out a cou­ple of hadith from the 2nd cen­tu­ry A.H., in favor of revised genealo­gies that put more peo­ple between Abra­ham^(P) and Muham­mad^(P) and Abra­ham^(P) and Adam^(P).

The Chris­tians, how­ev­er, would have to throw out pas­sages from their ​“inspired” Bible that deal with genealo­giesVar­i­ous pas­sages in the book of Gen­e­sis, Chron­i­cles and Luke that deal with genealo­gies.. So in effect, if Shamoun’s source is cor­rect, we would need to con­clude that :

• the writ­ings of Ibn Ishaq are not infal­li­ble, and ;
• the Bible is not infallible.

This is a posi­tion that Mus­lims have already tak­en, but it is one that the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies, most espe­cial­ly the mis­sion­ary Sam Shamoun, might want to think twice about !

Con­clu­sions

We have shown that the mis­sion­ary claim is, at best, spec­u­la­tive. Mod­ern sci­en­tif­ic research has shown that Jews and Arabs share the same genes, and there­fore hail from the same com­mon ancestor. 

More­over, we have seen how the mis­sion­ary has dis­tort­ed the Islam­ic tra­di­tions, and we have seen his attempts to appeal to an athe­is­tic source that bad­ly back­fires on him. ​“Truth is clear from error”, as the Qur’an has said, and we are grate­ful to the mis­sion­ary for the demon­stra­tion of these very words !

And only God knows best. 

The Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary made a fee­ble attempt to reply to our obser­va­tions above, which in our opin­ion has glossed over our major points. A short com­ment on that mis­sion­ary attempt can be seen in Fur­ther Com­ments On ​“Ish­mael Is Not The Father Of Muham­mad” Revis­it­ed.