Hajar
&
Ismail

Now Ibrahim always hoped for a son to follow in his footsteps

and tell the people that there is only One God,

and that the idols that people worshipped were worthless,

but he and his wife Sarah became very old,

and thought that Sarah would never be able to have the children they wanted.

So they agreed that Ibrahim would father a child with their slave girl Hajar.

Soon Hajar had a baby boy,

and they called him Ismail.

But with that Sarah became jealous of Hajar

having a son by Ibrahim when she couldn't,

so Ibrahim agreed to take them far away from her,

so she wouldn't have to see them.

Later,

by God's grace, Sarah also had a son,

and they called that baby Isaac.

But God guided Ibrahim, with Hajar and Ismail,

south through the burning hot deserts of Arabia

until they reached a place called Bakkah.

But there was little there but sand,

no water to drink

or to grow things to eat,

and no people.

Not the obvious place to set up home,

but it was there that God told Ibrahim to leave Hajar and her baby Ismail,

trusting in what God would provide for them.

So it's not a surprise that Hajar was terrified

of what would now happen to her and her baby.

So she put him down on the sand

and began to search for any sign of water.

She climbed a small hill nearby

to scan the horizon for any trace of green,

then ran to another hill

a few hundred metres away

to do the same in that direction.

And as she became more and more desperate,

she ran back and forth between the two hills,

crying out to God for help.

Seven times she ran between those hills before she looked across to Ismail,

and there where he lay,

in answer to her prayers,

where his heel kicked the sand there was running water.

That empty place called Bakkah

is now the town that we know as Makkah,

that place where muslims gather in pilgrimage.

The hills between which Hajar ran in desperation are now known as Safa and Marwah,

and as part of the Hajj muslims run back and forth between what is left of them

in the ritual known as Sa'y, the Running.

The spring of water that answered Hajar's prayers became known as Zam-Zam,

it is said from the sound made by the water

as it gushed from beneath Ismail's heel.

This was later turned into a well,

and in that place which once was dry desert dust,

Zam-Zam water is now a torrent

able to quench the thirst of thousands every day.

Beneath the floor of the Grand Mosque in Makkah,

the well of Zam-Zam now sits,

just 20 metres from the temple to the One God

built by Ibrahim and Ismail,

the temple which is the focus of our prayers and pilgrimage,

the Ancient House we know as Ka'aba.