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 the Jurhum, the tribe who settled in the area around Zamzam. Abraham visits Ishmael in Mecca and when he arrives at his home, Ishmael is not there. Instead Ishmael's wife greets Abraham, but she is not welcoming or generous to him. Abraham instructs her to tell Ishmael some version of the statement that he is not pleased with or to change "the threshold of his door." When Ishmael returns home and his wife tells him this, he knows it is from his father and taking the advice, divorces the woman. He then marries another woman from Jurhum. Abraham once again