Ishmael (Moby-Dick) Biblical in origin: in Genesis 16:1-16; 17:18-25; 21:6-21; 25:9-17, Ishmael was the son of Abraham by the servant Hagar. In 16:11-12, the most significant verses for Melville's allegory, Hagar was cast off after the birth of Isaac, who inherited the covenant of the Lord instead of his older half-brother. Melville shapes his allegory to the Biblical Ishmael as follows: And so the name points to a Biblical analogy that marks Ishmael as the prototype of "wanderer and outcast," the man set at odds with his fellows. Wright says that all Melville's heroes—with the exception of Benito Cereno and Billy Budd—are
Qedarite to biblical tradition, are the offspring of the Abraham-Ishmael-Kedar genealogical line. The majority of Sayyid believe they are one of the modern day descendants of Muhammad, and that they are therefore the descendants of Ishmael and his second son Qedar. Abu Ja'far al-Baqir (676–743 CE) wrote that his father Ali ibn Husayn informed him that Mohammed had said: "The first whose tongue spoke in clear Arabic was Ishmael, when he was fourteen years old." Hisham Ibn Muhammad al-Kalbi (737–819 CE) established a genealogical link between Ishmael and Mohammed using writings that drew on biblical and Palmyran sources, and the ancient