37.101 – So We gave him the good news of a forbearing boy
The Quran refers to Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in obedience to Allah only here (vv. 101–12). In view of this, a striking feature of this passage is that it does not name the son intended for sacrifice.
Muslim commentators on the Quran disagreed about the identity of the son. The earliest commentators up to al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) tended to identify the unnamed son as Isaac. But later in Islamic history, especially following Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), Muslim commentators developed a near consensus that the son was Ishmael.
Verse 101 says that God gave Abraham good news ( bashshara ) of a forbearing boy. Al-Ṭabarī (AD 839–923) took this as a clue. He considered the verses where the Quran says that good news of a son came to Abraham, especially 11.71: “His wife was standing (there), and she laughed. And so we gave her the good news of Isaac” (also 37.112). Other verses that use the same verb as this announcement but that don’t provide the name Isaac are 11.69; 15.53–55; 29.31; and 51.28. The verb bashshara is never connected to the birth of Ishmael.
Ibn Kathīr, on the other hand, argued more than 400 years after al-Ṭabarī that the son of sacrifice was Ishmael – and then went on the offensive. Ibn Kathīr alleged that the Jews had removed Ishmael’s name from Genesis 22:2 and inserted Isaac’s name in its place.
See also “Abraham in the Quran”.