The claim is intriguing: a Jewish Aramaic Targum, commenting on Genesis 21:21, names two wives of Ishmael in forms commonly rendered in English as "Adisha" and "Fatima." Some Muslims present this as an independent Jewish witness to the Islamic account that Ishmael settled in Arabia and married there. The point deserves attention, but the evidential value depends heavily on two matters: the exact form of the names and the date and transmission history of the Targum.

It is a point worth examining - but carefully. If stated modestly, it is an interesting overlap between Jewish and Islamic Ishmael traditions. If overstated, it becomes weaker than it needs to be. The strongest case is not that this single Targum "proves Islam," but that it forms one small part of a broader pattern: Ishmael is remembered in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions as a figure connected with wilderness, Paran, Arabs, and a line distinct from Isaac.

The biblical and Islamic background

Genesis 21:21 says of Ishmael:

"He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt."

The verse itself is brief. It tells us that Ishmael lived in Paran and married a woman from Egypt. It does not name the wife, mention Makkah, mention the Ka'bah, or describe multiple marriages.

In the Islamic reading, clarified by the Quran's wider references to the Sacred House and by the Sunnah, Abraham (Ibrahim) is connected with the sanctuary of Makkah. One key verse describes him settling part of his family in a barren valley near God's Sacred House:

"Our Lord, I have settled some of my offspring in an uncultivated valley near Your Sacred House, our Lord, that they may establish prayer. So make hearts among the people incline toward them, and provide for them from the fruits that they might be grateful." (Qur'an 14:37)

The Qur'an also links Abraham and Ishmael with raising the foundations of the House:

"And when Abraham was raising the foundations of the House, and Ishmael, saying, 'Our Lord, accept this from us. Indeed, You are the Hearing, the Knowing.'" (Qur'an 2:127)

In the Sunnah, the fuller narrative appears in an authentic hadith from Ibn Abbas in Sahih al-Bukhari 3364. It mentions Hajar and Ishmael in the valley of Makkah, the coming of Jurhum, Ishmael learning Arabic from them, and Ishmael marrying among them. It also narrates that Abraham later visited while Ishmael was absent; the first wife complained about their hardship, so Abraham left a message that Ishmael should "change the threshold of his gate." Ishmael understood this as an instruction to divorce her. Later Abraham visited again and found another wife who spoke gratefully, so he told Ishmael to "keep the threshold of his gate."

Ibn Abbas reported the long account of Hajar, Zamzam, Jurhum, and Abraham's visits to Ishmael. In it, Abraham told Ishmael's first wife to convey the message, "Change the threshold of your gate," and later told the second wife to convey, "Keep firm the threshold of your gate." This report is sahih and is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari 3364.

Notice an important point: the authentic hadith gives the structure of two wives, one replaced by another, but it does not name them.

What Targum Pseudo-Jonathan says

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is an Aramaic interpretive translation and expansion of the Torah; despite the traditional label, it is not securely attributable to Jonathan ben Uzziel, and its final form is generally treated as composite and relatively late. On Genesis 21:21, it expands the biblical verse by naming wives of Ishmael. In common English renderings, it says that Ishmael dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, took a wife named Adisha, put her away, and then his mother took for him a wife named Fatima from Egypt.

This is the basis of the argument. The Targum does not merely say Ishmael had a wife. It presents a first wife who was dismissed and a second wife who replaced her. That resembles one part of the structure found in the Islamic hadith: Ishmael married, Abraham later disapproved of the first wife through the "threshold" message, Ishmael divorced her, and then he married again. However, the Targumic line by itself does not reproduce the full hadith narrative of Hajar, Zamzam, Jurhum, Abraham's two visits, and the building of the Ka'bah.

The names are also striking to Muslim readers, but they must not be overstated. "Fatima" is a deeply familiar Arabic name, above all because Fatima was the beloved daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), yet the authentic Islamic report discussed here does not name Ishmael's wife Fatima. "Adisha" is sometimes presented in popular discussions as close to "A'ishah," the name of the Prophet's wife, but that identification is uncertain: the forms are not identical, the Aramaic transmission and transliteration are not simple, and this is not the name given to Ishmael's wife in Sahih al-Bukhari. The safer point is that the Targum's names have an Arabic or Islamic-era cultural resonance, not that they reproduce a Prophetic hadith naming Ishmael's wives.

The strongest version of the argument

The fairest and strongest way to state the argument is this:

  • Genesis 21:21 places Ishmael in Paran and says he married.
  • Islamic tradition places Ishmael in the Arabian sacred geography of Makkah and reports that he had two wives, the first divorced and the second retained.
  • Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, a Jewish interpretive tradition on Genesis, also speaks of Ishmael having a first wife who was dismissed and then a second wife.
  • The presence of names such as Fatima, and possibly a form that some associate with A'ishah, may indicate that Jewish transmitters in some setting connected Ishmael with an Arabic or Islamic-era cultural world. It should not be treated, without further evidence, as proof that a pre-Islamic Jewish source preserved the exact Islamic account.
  • Therefore, the Islamic story is not an isolated invention floating without any wider memory. It belongs to a broader late antique and medieval world in which Ishmael was linked with the peoples and religious history of Arabia.

That is a meaningful point. Islam does not present Ishmael as a marginal figure, but as a prophet and ancestor connected to Abrahamic worship in Arabia. When non-Muslim traditions also preserve expanded Ishmael material - especially involving Paran, marriage, and a second wife after the first - the Muslim may reasonably see this as a convergence worthy of reflection.

The strongest reply

The strongest objection is also serious: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, in its final form, is not a securely pre-Islamic Jewish text. It is not like quoting Genesis itself, nor even like quoting an early Second Temple source with a fixed date centuries before Islam. Scholars commonly regard Targum Pseudo-Jonathan as a composite and relatively late Targum, with layers and expansions that may reflect a post-Islamic environment.

This matters because if a Jewish text reached its final form after the rise of Islam, then names such as Fatima - and any alleged echo of A'ishah - could be evidence of Jewish awareness of the Islamic environment, not independent pre-Islamic corroboration of Islam. In other words, the direction of influence may be from the Islamic milieu into this Targumic tradition, rather than from ancient Jewish memory into Islam. The evidence also allows for more complex possibilities, such as shared regional oral motifs that were reshaped differently in Jewish and Muslim settings.

A second caution is that the match is structural, not exact. The authentic Islamic hadith does not name Ishmael's wives as Adisha and Fatima. It says he married among Jurhum after they settled near Hajar and Ishmael in Makkah, while Genesis 21:21 says his mother took a wife for him from Egypt. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, in the common rendering, also says the second wife was from Egypt. That point agrees with Genesis' wording, but it is not identical to the hadith's presentation.

A third caution concerns geography. Genesis mentions the wilderness of Paran, and Muslims have often connected Ishmael's Paran with the Hijaz and Makkah. But in biblical studies, "Paran" is debated and is often located in the Sinai-Negev wilderness region. The Targum passage by itself does not explicitly say "Makkah," "Ka'bah," or "Hijaz." Therefore, using this Targum alone to prove Makkah from Genesis would be an overclaim.

How a Muslim should use this evidence

A careful Muslim argument should avoid saying: "A pre-Islamic Jewish text proves that Ishmael married Fatima in Makkah." That statement contains too many unproven assumptions.

A better argument would be:

  • Targum Pseudo-Jonathan shows that Jewish exegetical tradition developed an expanded story about Ishmael's marriages.
  • This expanded story overlaps in structure with the Islamic report of Ishmael's first wife being replaced by a second.
  • The names in the Targum, especially Fatima, show that some Jewish transmitters connected Ishmael's story with Arabic or Islamic-sounding names.
  • This is consistent with the Islamic memory of Ishmael as a patriarch of Arabian sacred history, but it is not, by itself, decisive proof of that memory.

That modest framing is stronger because it does not ask the evidence to carry more than it can bear.

What it does and does not establish

It does establish that the extant form of a Jewish Targumic tradition on Genesis 21:21 contains more than the biblical verse itself. It presents Ishmael as having two wives, with the first put away and the second taken afterward. This is an interesting structural parallel to the authentic Islamic report in Sahih al-Bukhari, though the names and some details are not the same.

It also establishes that Jewish interpretive tradition, at least in the form in which this Targum reached us, associated Ishmael's family story with names that sound Arabic or Islamic-era to later readers. This is historically interesting and fits the broader fact that Ishmael was widely associated with Arab peoples, while still leaving open whether those names entered the tradition before or after Islam.

It does not establish that Genesis originally taught the full Islamic account of Makkah, Zamzam, Jurhum, and the Ka'bah. Genesis 21:21 does not say that.

It does not establish that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is an independent pre-Islamic witness to the names of Ishmael's wives. Its dating and transmission are too complex for that claim.

It does not establish that the Islamic hadith borrowed from the Targum, either. The overlap could be due to shared regional traditions, later Jewish awareness of Islamic narratives, or older oral material preserved in different forms. The evidence is not sufficient to prove a single direction of dependence.

A balanced conclusion

The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan passage is a fascinating piece of Abrahamic reception history. It shows that Jewish interpreters did not always leave Ishmael's marriage in the brief form found in Genesis; they expanded it, named wives, and even included the idea of a first wife being dismissed and a second taken. That overlaps meaningfully with the Islamic account.

But the honest conclusion is modest: this is not a standalone miracle claim and not a decisive proof of Islam. It is a supporting sign within a cumulative case. For the Muslim, it is one more reminder that the Qur'anic and Prophetic presentation of Ishmael is not an artificial intrusion into Abrahamic history. Ishmael remained a living figure in the memory of nations - and Islam gives that memory its clearest and most spiritually coherent form.