Ishmael  ·  Ismail

Ishmael in Islam

Ishmael is Ismail in Arabic, written إِسْمَاعِيل. 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
Ishmael
Arabic
إِسْمَاعِيل
Read as
Ismail
Status
Prophet in Islam
Where the English comes from
Hebrew Yishmael, God hears.
What the Arabic carries
Ismail, the Quranic form, carrying the same sense.
Full name page
Ismail on AsrNaam

Is Ishmael the same as Ismail? Yes. Ishmael is the English form and Ismail the Arabic form of one name. He raised the foundations of the Kaaba with his father, and the rites of Hajj are bound to him and his mother Hajar.

Ismail in the Quran

Ismail is the son who helps build. The Quran shows him raising the foundations of the House with his father, the two of them praying as they work that it be accepted from them. Everything about the Hajj, the running between Safa and Marwa, the well of Zamzam, the sacrifice at Mina, is bound to him and to his mother Hajar.

Islamic tradition names him as the son taken for sacrifice, where the Hebrew Bible names Isaac. The Quranic verse does not name the son at that point, and the Quran does record Ismail's answer: do what you are commanded, you will find me among the patient.

The Quran calls him true to his promise, a messenger and a prophet, and says he used to enjoin prayer and charity on his family. Ismail, Ismaeel, Ismael and Esmail are all in use.

Using the name

The full entry for Ismail 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.

Open the full Ismail page →

Questions about Ishmael and Ismail

Is Ishmael the same name as Ismail?
Ishmael is the English form and Ismail is the Arabic form of the same name. They refer to the same figure.
Is Ismail the same as Ishmael?
Yes. Ismail is the Arabic form of the Hebrew Yishmael, the elder son of Ibrahim.
Which son was taken for sacrifice?
Islamic tradition names Ismail and the Hebrew Bible names Isaac. The Quranic passage does not name him in that verse, which is why the question is discussed rather than assumed.
Can a Muslim family use the name Ismail?
Yes. Ismail is used as a given name across the Muslim world. AsrNaam carries its full page with the Arabic spelling, the pronunciation, the lucky number and the letter-by-letter Ilm ul Huroof reading.

Other names the two traditions share

Every one of these is one figure under two names.

Jesus and IsaMoses and MusaMary and MaryamAbraham and IbrahimJoseph and YusufDavid and DawudSolomon and SulaymanNoah and NuhJohn and YahyaJacob and YaqubJonah and YunusJob and AyyubAaron and HarunIsaac and Ishaq

Or start from the full list of Biblical names in Islam.

The letters of Ismail

Ilm ul Huroof reads a name through the Arabic letters it is written with. Each carries a traditional numeric value and a principle. Ismail is written إسماعيل, and reads as follows.

إ1س60support, the spine that carriesم40inward mercy, love returning to its sourceا1origin and the upright singularع70the eye, the spring of waterي10the hand and the bondل30reaching, the extended arm

The values total 212, which reduces to 5. This is a reading of the name's written structure in the letter-science tradition, not a claim about anyone who carries it.

How one name became two

Ishmael and Ismail are not translations of each other. They are two descendants of the same Semitic word. The Hebrew is יִשְׁמָעֵאל (Yishmael), meaning God hears. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages built on shared three-letter roots, so the name passed into Arabic as Ismail with its consonants largely intact. It reached English by the longer road: Hebrew into Greek, Greek into Latin, Latin into English, each language reshaping the sounds it could not make. That is why Ishmael and Ismail look unrelated on the page and are the same name underneath.

The same name, other languages

Ismael, Ismaele, Yishmael, Ismail, Ismaïl, Smail.