Hagar, Prophetess

Abstract

Hagar, Prophetess Tamam Kahn (bio) The story of Sarah and Hagar in Genesis is about jealousy, but I wondered what if it had a different motivation—that the two were close friends, and Sarah pretended jealousy to let Hagar fulfill her vision? I read this at an interfaith gathering, and a woman rabbi spoke next and said this was the version of history the Jewish women in her family handed down for generations! A woman doesn't start a nation with a babyand a mule, so Sarah helped mewith her story of that jealousy that pushed me out like I pushed Ishmael. I knew before my baby came.I'd seen the well, foresawthe black stone, felt the tearing pain, the time of doubt. He had to take us there,way out in Beersheba, the land of nothing.His face was closed. He couldn't look at me. He rode away, back to his life. I ran betweenthe hills, as I ran long agoin a vision. O, I was mad with thirst for all I'd left behind, and certainGod abandoned me.After Ishmael unearthed the Well of Zamzam, with his heel, after the caravans found us,after Mecca burst awake around us,after Abraham returned to build the Ka'ba, then it was clear. I could sit down and rest.My gift from God is immense. I doubt it's ever mentioned. [End Page 92] Tamam Kahn Tamam Kahn is author of Fatima's Touch: Poems and Stories of the Prophet's Daughter (2016), and Untold, A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad (2010). Untold, a prose biography with seventy poems, was awarded an International Book Award in 2011 and translated and published in Jakarta, Indonesia. Travels to sacred sites in Morocco, Syria, Andalusia, and India, and research into early Islamic life have fueled Tamam's writing. In 2009, she was invited by the Royal Ministry of Morocco to read her poetry at an international Sufi conference in Marrakesh. Visit her blog: completeword.wordpress.com. Copyright © 2019 The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc.