Ibrahim al-Khalil: The Father of the Prophets

Ibrahim ibn Azar, whom Allah chose as His intimate friend (khalil) and who is the patriarch of the prophetic lineage leading to Muhammad, receives the most extensive and detailed treatment among all the pre-Muhammadan prophets in Ibn Kathir's Bidayah. The account begins with Ibrahim's early life in the land of the Chaldeans, his recognition through rational contemplation that the stars, the moon, and the sun could not be gods, and his open confrontation with the idol-worshipping community including his own father. Ibn Kathir presents the Quranic narrative of Ibrahim's destruction of the idols and his brilliant argument with the idol-worshippers who accused him: he directed them to ask the chief idol, which could not answer, demonstrating through their own silence the absurdity of their worship. The community's response was to condemn him to the fire, but Allah commanded the fire to be cool and safe for Ibrahim, and he emerged unharmed, a miracle affirmed in the Quran and by numerous hadith narrations.

Following the miraculous episode of the fire, Ibrahim migrated from his homeland, accompanied by his nephew Lut and his wife Sarah, first to the Levant (al-Sham) and then briefly to Egypt. In Egypt, the ruler was attracted to Sarah's beauty, and Ibn Kathir narrates the famous account in which Allah protected Sarah's honor through divine intervention. Ibrahim returned from Egypt with Hajar, an Egyptian servant woman, and settled in Palestine. The birth of Isma'il through Hajar and the subsequent command to take Hajar and the infant Isma'il to the barren valley of Makkah are narrated with the full detail found in the hadith, particularly the extended hadith of Ibn 'Abbas preserved in Sahih al-Bukhari. The miracle of Zamzam, which sprang from the earth when Hajar ran between Safa and Marwah searching for water, is presented as the origin both of the blessed well that still flows and of the rite of sa'i performed by pilgrims to this day.

The near-sacrifice of Ibrahim's son represents the supreme test of his submission to Allah, and Ibn Kathir devotes careful attention to the scholarly dispute over whether the intended sacrifice was Isma'il or Ishaq. He presents the arguments of both positions with their textual evidence, noting that the Quran does not explicitly name the son in the main narrative passage. Ibn Kathir's own assessment, after evaluating the arguments, is that the stronger scholarly position is that the sacrifice was of Isma'il, based on the sequence of Quranic narrative in which Ishaq is given as glad tidings only after the account of the sacrifice, and based on the understanding that Isma'il was the only son of Ibrahim at the time of the command. The father's willingness to sacrifice his son and the son's own willing submission represent, for Ibn Kathir, the highest human expression of tawakkul and surrender to divine will, which is why this event is commemorated annually in the rites of Eid al-Adha.

The construction of the Ka'bah by Ibrahim and Isma'il, described explicitly in Surah al-Baqarah, is presented as the establishment of the first house of worship on earth dedicated exclusively to Allah. Ibn Kathir documents Ibrahim's supplication during and after the construction: his prayer for Makkah to be a place of security, for its people to be provided for, and most significantly his supplication for a prophet to arise from his descendants who would recite divine verses, teach the Book and wisdom, and purify his people. This supplication was answered, as the Prophet himself acknowledged, identifying himself as the response to Ibrahim's prayer. Ibn Kathir also covers the establishment of the Hajj rites by Ibrahim, the annual pilgrimage being a direct continuation of the Ibrahimic tradition. The section on Ibrahim concludes with his death and burial at Hebron (al-Khalil) in Palestine, alongside Sarah, in the cave of Machpelah, a site that retains its sanctity in Islamic history as the burial place of several prophets.