A young man looking at the sky
The Recitation starts with him working it out. Night falls and he sees a star and says, this is my lord; then it sets, and he says he does not like things that disappear. The moon rises, then sets. The sun rises, greater than both, and sets too (The Recitation 6:76–78). So he stops.
"Indeed, I have turned my face toward He who created the heavens and the earth, inclining toward truth, and I am not of those who associate others with The God."
He asks his own father and his people what the statues are that they are so devoted to. The answer is: we found our fathers worshipping them (The Recitation 21:52–53).
He tells them plainly they are mistaken. Then he breaks the idols and leaves the largest one standing, and when they accuse him he tells them to ask the big one (The Recitation 21:57–63). They come to themselves for a moment and admit the idols cannot speak (The Recitation 21:64–65).
The fire
Their answer is to burn him.
They said, "Burn him and support your gods - if you are to act."
The God said, "O fire, be coolness and safety upon Abraham."
They meant him harm, and they were the ones who lost (The Recitation 21:70). He comes out of the fire. Afterwards he says the sentence that describes the rest of his life: I am going to my Lord, He will guide me (The Recitation 37:99).
Called out of his country
The Torah picks him up at the moment of leaving.
Now The Lord God said to Abram, "Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
The destination is not named. He goes anyway. Later he is told to look at the stars and count them, if he can, and that his offspring will be like that. One line is written about his answer, and the Gospel and the Recitation both come back to it: he believed the Lord God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:5–6).
When he is ninety-nine the Lord God appears and tells him to walk before Him and be blameless (Genesis 17:1). Three visitors come to his tent in the heat of the day and he runs to meet them and bows to the ground (Genesis 18:1–2). He is a man who hurries towards guests and towards the Lord God alike.
Two sons
Hagar bears him a son and he calls him Ishmael (Genesis 16:15). The Lord God says of that boy that He has heard, has blessed him, will multiply him, and will make him a great nation (Genesis 17:20). Then Sarah, in old age, bears Isaac (Genesis 21:1–3).
Hagar and the child are sent into the wilderness with bread and water (Genesis 21:14). In the Recitation, Abraham prays for descendants he has settled in an empty valley by the Lord God's sacred House. He asks that hearts incline towards them, and that they be provided for (The Recitation 14:37).
He and Ishmael raise the foundations of that House together, and their prayer over it is four words long: our Lord, accept from us (The Recitation 2:127).
The vision
Then the hardest part, and the two books tell it with a difference that must be stated and not smoothed over.
The Torah says the Lord God tested Abraham. He told him to take his son, his only son, whom he loves, Isaac, to the land of Moriah (Genesis 22:1–2). He goes.
The knife is in his hand when he is stopped. He is told not to lay a hand on the boy, "for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Genesis 22:12). A ram is caught in a thicket, and is offered instead of his son (Genesis 22:13).
The Recitation does not name the son in that passage. It tells it as a dream Abraham was shown, and gives the boy a voice the Torah does not.
"O my son, indeed I have seen in a dream that I sacrifice you, so see what you think." He said, "O my father, do as you are commanded. You will find me, if The God wills, of the steadfast."
When both have submitted and Abraham has laid him down, the call comes: O Abraham, you have fulfilled the vision (The Recitation 37:104–105). It is called the clear trial, and the boy is ransomed with a great sacrifice (The Recitation 37:106–107).
Readers of the Recitation have generally understood the son here to be Ishmael. The Torah names Isaac. Both were the firstborn of their mothers. Both are blessed by name in Genesis (The Recitation 17:20, 21:12).
Both, in their own telling, were laid down and not taken. We say what each text says and we stop there. We note the thing they agree on, because it is the whole point of the story: the vision was fulfilled, and no son was killed.
What the Lord God said of him
He said He would make of him a great nation, and that all the families of the Earth would be blessed in him (Genesis 12:2–3). He counted his trust as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). He told him to walk before Him and be blameless (Genesis 17:1). He told him he had fulfilled the vision and called him one of the doers of good (The Recitation 37:105).
He said, when Abraham had come through what he was tried with, "Indeed, I will make you a leader for the people" (The Recitation 2:124). And the Recitation calls him a leader, devoutly obedient, inclining toward truth, grateful for His favours, chosen and guided to a straight path (The Recitation 16:120–121).
His own last recorded request is simple enough for anyone to copy: make me an establisher of prayer, and from my descendants (The Recitation 14:40).
A prayer
Lord God Almighty, You called a man out of his father's house to a land You would not name, and he went. Give us that much trust. Make the fires we are afraid of cool. Count our believing, as You counted his. Make us establishers of prayer, and our children after us. Our Lord, accept from us; You are the Hearing, the Knowing.
Questions people might ask
Did Abraham sacrifice his son?
No. He was stopped, and a ram was given instead (Genesis 22:12-13). The Lord God revealed to us in the Recitation that the vision was fulfilled and a great sacrifice ransomed the boy (The Recitation 37:105-107).
Why is he called the friend of God?
Isaiah and James both call him that (Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). The Recitation says The God took Abraham as a friend (The Recitation 4:125). He trusted, and he obeyed.
What did he pray for?
For a city, for his children to keep prayer, and for forgiveness on the Day (The Recitation 14:35-41). He also argued with the Lord God for the people of Sodom (Genesis 18:23-32).
