The family tree of Ibrahim, from Azar to the prophets of Islam

The Qur’an names the father of Ibrahim once, in Surah 6:74, where Ibrahim reproaches his father Azar for taking idols as deities.¹ Genesis calls him Terah.²¹ Islamic tradition makes Azar a maker of idols in Ur, whose son Ibrahim mocked the idols he was sent to sell.²²

The Qur’an names both sons in Ibrahim’s thanks, “Praise to Allāh, who has granted to me in old age Ishmael and Isaac.”² Ismail was the first son, and his mother was Hajar.²³ The Qur’an does not name her. Tradition makes her a maid of the king of Egypt, given to Sarah and then to Ibrahim as a wife.²⁵ Ishaq was the son of Sarah, whom Surah 11:71 calls only his wife when she receives “good tidings of Isaac and after Isaac, Jacob.”^24,3

Ibrahim and Ismail raised the foundations of the House, which Muslims hold to be the Kaaba in Mecca.^4,22 Surah 19:54 calls Ismail “a messenger and a prophet.”⁵ Surah 37 does not name the son Ibrahim was ready to sacrifice.⁶ Al-Tabari recorded both views, and Eid al-Adha remembers the son as Ismail.²²

Islamic tradition traces the Prophet Muhammad to Ismail through Adnan, the forefather of the Adnanite Arabs.³⁰ The genealogies do not agree on the number of ancestors between Ismail and Adnan, though they agree on the names from Adnan to the Prophet.³⁰ The family tree of Ibrahim draws that gap as a dashed line and names nobody in it.

The table lists the twenty-two names from Adnan to the Prophet, father to son, as the family tree of Muhammad on Wikipedia gives them.³¹ The family tree of Ibrahim draws Adnan, Abd al-Muttalib, Abd Allah and the Prophet, noting the eighteen names between.

Surah 12:6 speaks of the “fathers before, Abraham and Isaac” of Yusuf.⁸ Yaqub was later called Israil, and his twelve sons fathered the twelve tribes.²⁶ At his death his sons promise to worship “the God of your fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac.”⁷ The family tree of Ibrahim draws one of the twelve, Yusuf, whose story Surah 12 tells.²⁶

Musa asks for “Aaron, my brother” as his helper, in Surah 20:30.⁹ In tradition the father of Musa and Harun is Imran, the Amram of the Bible, and Levi, a son of Yaqub, is named as his ancestor.²⁷ The Qur’an names no generation between Yaqub and Imran, so a dashed line joins them.

Dawud appears among the Children of Israel after Musa, when he kills Goliath.¹⁰ “And to David We gave Solomon,” says Surah 38:30, and Surah 27:16 adds that “Solomon inherited David.”^11,12 Sulayman is drawn as his son, and a dashed line joins Dawud to Yaqub.

Surah 3:33 sets “the family of Abraham and the family of ʿImrān” side by side, and the next verse adds “descendants, some of them from others.”¹⁴ No line between the two families is given, so the family tree of Ibrahim draws the family of Imran apart.

The wife of Imran pledged her unborn child to Allah and named the daughter Mary, and Allah put the girl in the care of Zakariyya.¹⁴ Al-Tabari names the mother Hanna. Mary in Islam makes Zakariyya her maternal uncle, and Zechariah in Islam calls him her guardian, so the chart gives him no line to her.^28,29

Surah 66:12 calls Maryam “the daughter of ʿImrān,” and Surah 19:34 names “Jesus, the son of Mary.”^15,17 Isa has no father in the Qur’an, so one line runs from Maryam. Surah 4:158 says “Allāh raised him to Himself,” so he has no mark of death.¹⁹ Yahya is the son promised to Zakariyya in Surah 19:7.¹⁸

Her father is not to be confused with Amram, the father of Moses, although N. J. Dawood held that the Qur’an joins the two.²⁸ Surah 19:28 calls Maryam “sister of Aaron,” which the Saheeh International translation glosses as descendant.¹⁶ The chart keeps the two Imrans apart.