Appearance
Abraham's Father
وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمُ لِأَبِيهِ ءَازَرَ أَتَتَّخِذُ أَصْنَامًا ءَالِهَةً ۖ إِنِّىٓ أَرَىٰكَ وَقَوْمَكَ فِى ضَلَـٰلٍ مُّبِينٍ
(6:74) When Abraham said to Azar, his father, ‘Do you take idols for gods? Indeed I see you and your people in manifest error.’
The question
Was Āzar, the idol-worshipper whom Abraham calls “my father” (ab), Abraham's real father?
Views answered: the commentators who take Āzar to be Abraham's biological father, the Sunnī ḥadīth scholars and theologians who hold this view
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan sets aside the long disputes over the name Āzar and the meaning of ab (father, uncle, maternal grandfather) and argues from the Qur'an itself. Abraham urged Āzar to give up idols, promised to pray for him and then disassociated himself from him early in his life; yet at the end of his life, in Mecca, he prayed for forgiveness for “my parents” (wālidayya) — and wālid is used only for the real father. So Āzar was not Abraham's real father, whose name the narrations and the Old Testament give as Tārikh. In the narrations it notes that some Sunnī scholars hold that Āzar was his biological father, while others and the Shīʿah reject it, and concludes that the narrations saying he was are against the Qur'an.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- How the commentators differ on Āzar and the word ab
- Abraham's first argument was with Āzar
- His promise to pray for him, and his disassociation
- His last prayer, for “my parents” (wālidayya)
- Why wālid means the real father
- Conclusion: Āzar was not Abraham's real father
- Narrations: the historians and the two views
- The narrations against the Qur'an set aside