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
Ishmael in Islam Muslims believe that Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, though the Qur'an does not name the son. The multiple versions suggest that the dhabih was originally an oral story that had been circulating before being written as it is in the Qur'an and in additional commentaries. Norman Calder explains, "oral narrative is marked by instability of form and detail from version to version, and by an appropriate creative flexibility which makes of every rendering a unique work of art." Each version is indeed a "unique work of art," differing from another in various ways to present certain ideas,