Philip the Arab and Christianity that appear—save for one reference to Ishmael—figure in the political history of the first three centuries of the Christian era. To Eusebius, the Saracens of the 4th century are direct-line descendants of the biblical Ishmaelites, descendants of the handmaid, Hagar, and the patriarch, Abraham. They are thus outcasts, beyond God's Covenant with the favored son of Abraham, Isaac. The twin images of the Ishmaelite and the Saracen—outcasts and "latrones", raiders of the frontiers—reinforce each other and give Eusebius' portrait of the Arab nation an unhappy color. He may have been reluctant to associate the first Christian emperor with a people
Biblical people in Islam prophetic grandson by the name of Ya`qūb (Jacob). Sarah and Abraham had no children. Abraham, however, prayed constantly to God for a son. Sarah, being barren, subsequently gave him her Egyptian handmaiden, Hājar (Hagar), to wed as his second wife. Hagar bore Ismā'īl (Ishmael), when Abraham was 86, who too would become a prophet of God like his father. Thirteen years later, God announced to Abraham, now a hundred, that the barren Sarah would give birth to a second son, Isaac, who would also be a prophet of the Lord. Although the Qur'an does not mention Sarah by name, it