At a spring en route, an angel appeared to Hagar, who instructed her to return to Sarai and submit to her mistress.

[16] The Quranic narrative slightly differs from the Biblical account: it is God alone who commands Abraham to take Hagar and Ishmael down to the desert, later Mecca, and leave them there.

He helped her and said that God heard Ishmael cry and would provide them with water, and Hagar found the sacred Zamzam Well.

However Hagar, when pregnant by Abraham, began to act superciliously toward Sarah, provoking the latter to treat her harshly, to impose heavy work upon her, and even to strike her (ib.

Rashi argues that "Keturah" was a name given to Hagar because her deeds were as beautiful as incense (hence: ketores), and/or that she remained chaste from the time she was separated from Abraham—קְטוּרָה derives from the Aramaic word "restrained".

The contrary view (that Keturah was someone other than Hagar) is advocated by the Rashbam, Abraham ibn Ezra, David Kimhi, and Nachmanides.

Hagar is held up as an example of the high degree of godliness prevalent in Abraham's time, for while Manoah was afraid that he would die because he had seen an angel of God (Judges xiii.

by preventing her intercourse with Abraham, by whipping her with her slipper, and by exacting humiliating services, such as carrying her bathing-materials to the bath (l.c.

), that as soon as she had reached the wilderness she relapsed into idolatry, and that she murmured against God's providence, saying: "Yesterday thou saidest: 'I will multiply thy seed exceedingly' [Gen. xvi.

The fact that she selected an Egyptian woman as her son's wife is also counted against her as a proof that her conversion to Judaism was not sincere, for "throw the stick into the air, it will return to its root" (Gen. R.

This Egyptian wife is explained in the Targum of pseudo-Jonathan to refer to Khadijaand Fatima, the widow and the daughter of Mohammed (see Zunz, "G. V." 2d ed., p. 288, note a).

[24] In the New Testament, Paul the Apostle made Hagar's experience an allegory of the difference between law and grace in his Epistle to the Galatians.

Some Modern Muslim scholars are of the opinion that she was never a handmaid of Sarah, rather she was a princess of Egypt who willingly followed Abraham and later married him.

They further argue that Hagar and Ishmael were not cast out as claimed by Biblical narrative, but they were settled at Makkah (Paran) for the sake of Allah.

[34] Neither Sarah nor Hājar is mentioned by name in the Qur'an, but the story is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Ibrāhīm's prayer in Surah Ibrahim (14:37): "I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House.

[36] According to another tradition, Hājar was the daughter of the Egyptian king, who gave her to Ibrāhīm as a wife, thinking Sarah was his sister.

[38] The incident[40] of her running between the Al-Safa and Al-Marwah hills is remembered by Muslims when they perform their pilgrimage (Hajj) at Mecca.

Part of the pilgrimage is to run seven times between the hills, in commemoration of Hājar's courage and faith in God as she searched for water in the desert (which is believed to have then miraculously appeared from the Zamzam Well), and to symbolize the celebration of motherhood in Islam.

To complete the task, some Muslims also drink from the Zamzam Well and take some of the water back home from pilgrimage in memory of Hājar.

The Baháʼí Publishing House released a text on the wives and concubines of Abraham and traces their lineage to five different religions.

[43] Many artists have painted scenes from the story of Hagar and Ishmael in the desert, including Pieter Lastman, Gustave Doré, Frederick Goodall and James Eckford Lauder.

Edmonia Lewis, the early African-American and Native American sculptor, made Hagar the subject of one of her most well-known works.

[46] Hall Caine gave the name A Son of Hagar to 1885 book set in contemporary England and dealing with the theme of illegitimacy.

Hagar is mentioned, along with Bilhah and Zilpah, in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel which centres around the women whose duty it is to produce children for their masters, assuming the place of their wives in a rape ceremony based upon the biblical passage.

In the recent book of nonfiction, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths, by Charlotte Gordon provides an account of Hagar's life from the perspectives of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

The giving of this name is often taken as a controversial political act, marking the parents as being supporters of reconciliation with the Palestinians and the Arab world, and is frowned upon by many, including nationalists and the religious.

The connotations of the name were represented by the founding of the Israeli journal Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities in 2000.

Wilma Bailey, in an article entitled "Hagar: A Model for an Anabaptist Feminist", refers to her as a "maidservant" and "slave".

In the article "A Mistress, A Maid, and No Mercy", Renita J. Weems argues that the relationship between Sarah and Hagar exhibits "ethnic prejudice exacerbated by economic and social exploitation".

As early as 1988, Anna Goldman-Amirav in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering wrote of Hagar within "the Biblical 'battle of the wombs' [which] lay the foundation for the view of women, fertility, and sexuality in the patriarchal society".