Isaac · Ishaq
Isaac in Islam
Isaac is Ishaq in Arabic, written إِسْحَاق. The two names belong to the same person, and the two traditions tell his story differently enough to be worth reading side by side.
- English
- Isaac
- Arabic
- إِسْحَاق
- Read as
- Ishaq
- Status
- Prophet in Islam
- Where the English comes from
- Hebrew Yitzchak, he laughs.
- What the Arabic carries
- Ishaq, the Quranic form, carrying the same sense of laughter.
- Full name page
- Ishaq on AsrNaam
Is Isaac the same as Ishaq? Yes. Isaac is the English form and Ishaq the Arabic form of one name. His name and the laugh at the announcement of his birth are the same word in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Ishaq in the Quran
Ishaq is announced before he is born, and the announcement is why he is named. The angels come to Ibrahim, and his wife, standing there, laughs, and is given the news of Ishaq and beyond him of Yaqub. She asks how, being an old woman with a husband who is old. The name and the laugh are the same word.
The Quran names him a prophet among the righteous and pairs him repeatedly with Ismail, his half-brother, in the lists of those given revelation. The two lines that come from Ibrahim through these two sons are the reason the Quran treats Jews, Christians and Muslims as relatives rather than strangers.
The name is used across the Muslim world as Ishaq, Isaac, Ishak and Izak, and the Somali and Turkish forms are among the most common.
Using the name
The full entry for Ishaq carries the Arabic spelling, the Urdu, the pronunciation, the lucky number and the letter-by-letter Ilm ul Huroof reading, along with every romanisation the name is written in.
Questions about Isaac and Ishaq
Is Isaac the same name as Ishaq?
Is Ishaq the same as Isaac?
Why does the name mean he laughs?
Can a Muslim family use the name Ishaq?
Other names the two traditions share
Every one of these is one figure under two names.
Or start from the full list of Biblical names in Islam.