Hajar: Lessons in Faith and Wilderness Survival For Our Times
By Zahrah Awaleh
Reflecting on Hajar (peace be upon her), her name says it all: migrant, foreigner, refugee, one who migrated (i.e. made hijra) for God twice; once when she joined Abraham and Sarah to become Sarah’s handmaid (known as Hagar in the Bible) and disciple in tawhid (monotheism), and secondly when she and Ismail went into the wilderness of Bekka (i.e. Makkah) and were left there by Abraham by the command of God to establish tawhid in that barren wasteland. The one who brought life to the barren household of Abraham was the same woman chosen by God to give life and spiritual awakening to the barren desert in the valley of Bekka: She who chose God instead of spiritual meltdown.
From what we know about Hajar from hadith (Prophetic narration), she joined Abraham’s household as an Egyptian handmaid gifted to them by an Egyptian king who in some reports was her father. In reports by Bukhari and Muslim, this king tried to molest Sarah without success, due to her sincere prayers to God for protection and which were directly answered by the King’s paralysis. Sarah prayed for his recovery as he pleaded, once recovered he rewarded her with Hagar, so Sarah not only saved herself and Abraham from death, but won an addition to their household and to their faith community. Sarah being unable to bear children presented Hagar to Abraham as a second wife, but she was still the younger wife and had less status. Some report that Hagar put herself on par with her mistress after her marriage, so Abraham gave Sarah permission to do with her as she saw fit. Thus, Hagar runs away from Sarah’s severe punishment into the wilderness, but returns because being pregnant she and her baby cannot survive there. An angel speaks to her in the desert ‘“’I shall make your descendents too numerous to be counted”’’ (Genesis 16:10) placing faith and hope in her future, enough to motivate her to return.
Later Sarah gives birth to Isaac and feels threatened by Hagar and the eldest son Ismail and wants her son to be the first heir and thus secure her future since women could not inherit from their husbands, so according to the Bible orders Abraham to expel them from their household. Some interpret Ismail as a baby, others that he was 17 years old, and they reached the desert of Beersheba. Hagar cried out of hunger and fear for her son and God heard her plea and the cries of Ismail (‘“‘Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s cry in his plight’”’, Genesis 21:17), thus Ismail’s name means “God has heard.” They survived and went on to thrive eventually, but the Bible leaves their story there in the desert.
The Islamic version continues the story from where the Bible left off: Abraham takes Hajar on this journey with his first born son across a vast distance to place them in a wilderness because of a revelation from God, not directly because of Sarah’s jealousy. Abraham leaves them in the valley of Bekka with some dates and water; so what does she do when he turns around to leave? Sit down and accept her fate quietly? Weep and plead with him to stay or take them back home? No, she asks him key questions:
- Why did he bring them to this wilderness? She asks this repeatedly, not just once, and he doesn’t look at her or respond – What is Abraham thinking? All we know is Abraham was distraught enough to plea with God, out of her view, straight after he left them so he’s definitely worried.
- What is Hajar thinking? She needs to know why so she can accept this decision which could be the end of her and their baby. She asks because it is her right to ask. She is teaching us that we have a right to ask questions to those in authority about our welfare and condition, we don’t simply have to accept things as they are.
- Why send a black woman from a foreign culture to Bekka? What is God saying about the vulnerable in society? I think God uses Hajar and Ismail as a metaphor; the weakest amongst you are just as human and dignified as the strongest, so everyone matters regardless of social status, race or wealth.
- Once Abraham says this is God’s command, she accepts the mission to stay in the wilderness willingly, returns to her baby and has firm faith and trust that God will not abandon them and will provide for them.
This is a powerful symbol of a woman’s right to raise her voice and concerns by questioning those in positions of authority in patriarchal society, even if they be a prophet of God and the first messenger of the monotheistic tradition! For me this is a deep metaphor for women and those in lower positions in society to raise their voices to seek justice in their wilderness when injustice prevails. Hajar teaches us that we have a right to hold people in authority to account. We have power. We have agency even in the worst of times.
When she quickly ran out of food and water, Hajar’s flight (sa’y) between the hills of Safa and Marwa was an act of faith; an act of desperation in fight/flight mode where she actually chose to do something instead of freeze or faint and dehydrate watching her baby die. She chose life, and showed how to use ones agency in the face of crisis in the wilderness. This is why she is a symbol of truth-seeking, justice-seeking and faithfulness, asking then trusting in God to get her through the impossible wilderness that God placed her in to establish tawhid.
So if we give her due credit, without Hajar there would be no zamzam, no Kaba, no Makkah, no Quraysh, no Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). It’s that simple. When we teach the Hajj story to our children, she barely gets a mention, and instead we focus on the sacrifice of Ismail by his father. But what if that first great sacrifice of wilderness survival by a mother and child in the vast arid desert of Bekka was the tawhidic template for the latter one by Abraham? What if Hajar lead the way for Abraham to make the sacrifice of Ismail? What if, as Riffat Hassan proposes, that Hajar became an example to Prophet Muhammad of how to make hijrah for God’s mission to establish tawhid? That ‘She demonstrated by her faith and actions that for a believer all of God’s earth is a sanctified place and that loyalty to God supersedes attachment to terrestrial bonds, be they of place or persons.’
Now that is a thought.