Who Are The Edomites?

Our inaugural question for Now That’s a Good Question is a good one. I’ve been asked, “In Deuteronomy 2, it seems as God protected the descendants of Esau from Israel. Is it possible these people were the first Muslims?”

This question relates to a couple of separate, but connected, questions. Let me take each in turn and try to connect the dots between them.

Who Were the Descendants of Esau?

Esau was Jacob’s twin brother born just moments before Jacob. Genesis 25:26 says that Jacob was born “clutching Esau’s heel”. An interesting note comes from that passage. The Hebrew name Jacob [ יַעֲקֹ֑ב - ya’qob] is derived from the word for heel עָקֵב] - ‘aqeb]. Because Jacob was grasping Esau’s heel, as if he was trying to pull himself ahead of his older twin so he could be born first, the connotation of “overreacher or deceiver” became associated with his name.

Because Esau was the firstborn, he was entitled to the majority share of the inheritance from his father Isaac. This meant that he would not only receive a larger portion of his father’s goods, money, servants, flocks, and herds, but that he would also receive the birthright. Receiving the birthright meant that the family name and titles would pass through Esau’s lineage, not Jacob’s. Thus, the covenant established between God and Abraham regarding the land (Gen. 15:18-21; 17:8) and a blessed lineage (Gen. 12:2-3; 17:2-8) would flow through Esau. Esau’s line would be the line of God’s special blessing, not Jacob’s. One can understand, then, why Jacob went to such great lengths to trick his brother out of the birthright and deceive his father into blessing him with the blessing intended for Esau. Much more than money and means was at stake for Jacob in the deal.

When Esau was 40 years old, he married two women: Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite [a.k.a. Oholibamah daughter of Anah] and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite [a.k.a. Adah] (Gen. 26:34-35; 36:2). Genesis 26:34-35 says these girls were “a great source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah.” The Hittites in Canaan during the patriarchal age may have been the remnants of an Indo-European people who had an empire that had once reached from modern-day Turkey to the Nile River valley on the eastern edge of Egypt. The Hittites were, among other things, polytheistic. It is this religious influence on Esau that undoubtedly gave consternation to his parents. Esau married Mahalath [a.k.a. Basemath], the daughter of his great-uncle, Ishmael (Gen. 28:9; 36:3). Note, it was common for Arab women to be renamed by their husbands after marriage. The names were often representative of a trait the husband liked about them (e.g. Oholibamah = “tent-height”, Adah = “ornament”, Basemath = “fragrant”).

After Jacob stole the blessing of the firstborn from his brother Esau, the young man begged his father Isaac to bless him somehow. Isaac did bless Esau, but not in the way he desired. Genesis 27:39-40 says that Isaac blessed Esau with this blessing, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.” The “blessing” of Isaac is more a prophetic pronouncement of Esau’s future than a blessing in the strictest sense. Esau and his posterity will not dwell and partake of the richness of the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob, but will live in a desolate land, a land the opposite of the fullness of Canaan. The description Isaac gives is an apt description of biblical Edom which was located south of the Dead Sea and engulfed much of the Sinai desert with its southeastern border being the mountain range of Seir and southernmost boarder being the Gulf of Aqaba. It’s interesting that the Biblical mountain range of Seir is the southeastern border of Israel / southwestern border of Jordan today.  Esau and his lineage would “live by the sword.” They would be a warring and nomadic people whose wealth came mainly from what they could take from others, not from the fruit of the ground, flocks, or herds.

Isaac also promises that Esau’s line would struggle with and be dominated by Jacob’s (Israel’s), but not forever. After a very long period of independence, Esau’s lineage - the Edomites – were defeated by Saul (1 Sam. 14:7) and later put into servitude by David (2 Sam. 8:14). Despite an attempt to revolt under Solomon (1 Kgs. 11:14ff), the Edomites remained subjugated to Judah until the time of Joram, when they rebelled. They were defeated and brought to heel again by Amaziah (2 Kgs. 14:7; 2 Chron. 25:11ff) and remained that way until the time of Uzziah and Jotham (2 Kgs. 14:22; 2 Chron. 26:2). It wasn’t until the reign of Ahaz that the Edomites finally broke free from Judah’s domination (2 Kgs. 16:6; 2 Chron. 28:17) without Judah being able to subdue them again. However, John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean (Maccabeean) priest who ruled Judah in revolt against the Seleucids from 134-104 B.C., subdued the Edomites in 129 B.C.; forcing them to undergo circumcision and assimilating them into the Jewish state. It wasn’t until Antipater and Herod that the tables turned when, with Roman support, an Idumean dynasty (Herodian line) ruled over Judea. This turn of the tables lasted until the dissolution of the Jewish state by Rome cir. A.D. 70.

Josephus, the Roman historian, recorded that some 20,000 Idumeans (Edomites) fought with their Judean cousins against the Romans; some dying in the final revolt at Masada. After the Jewish revolt and final fight at Masada 73/74 A.D. there is no mention of the Idumeans/Edmomites as a people group in history. The descendants of Jacob/people of Israel were forbidden from hating the Edomites because of their close kinship (Deut. 23:7) in Isaac and Abraham. This explains why God told Israel to not antagonize the Edomites as they passed through their land, but to pay in silver for the water and food they consumed (Deut. 2:4-6). However, historically Edom routinely fought against Israel and despised their cousins and the God they serve. It was because of their hatred for God’s chosen people – their firstborn blessed cousins – that God, through the prophet Ezekiel, foretold of the destruction of Esau’s lineage (Ezk. 35:1-15).

The descendants of Esau today cannot be clearly identified with any single people-group in the Middle East. Undoubtedly, they inter-married with their Jewish cousins, Romans, Canaanite peoples, and the various people groups which migrated through Israel during the period of the Roman Empire and after. There is probably Idumean blood in many of the peoples in and around Israel today.

Are Any of the Ancient Biblical Peoples the First Muslims?

In order to answer the question, a brief history of the rise and spread of Islam is in order.

Islam was founded by Muhammad (a.k.a. Mohammad, Muhammed) cir. A.D. 610. Muhammad was born about A.D. 570 into a wealthy clan in Mecca (modern-day Saudi Arabia). His father died before he was born and his mother before he was six years old. His grandfather took him in, but died when Muhammed was nine. He then went to live with his uncle Abu Talid where he herded flocks. He later partnered with his uncle in the caravan trade; making many trips to Syria and Persia.

As an adult he became acquainted with the Monophysites, who believed that Christ had only a divine nature, the Nestorians, who divided the natures of Christ into both human and divine, effectively denying that the man Jesus of Nazareth was both fully God and fully man, and Jews who introduced him to monotheism through the Talmud (the official Rabbinic teachings of Judaism). In short, Muhammad’s early introduction to “the one true God” did not come from anyone who really understood the Bible. Even a Muslim historian, Caesar Farah, admits that Muhammad’s narration of Scriptural events shows “he could not have had an educated knowledge of the sacred texts.”[1] His incompetence in the sacred texts of any of the afore mentioned religions, let alone Scripture, is supported by the fact that Muhammad was completely illiterate; incapable of reading and writing.

Muhammad became an intensely spiritual man because of this religious exposure. As a result of his travels with his uncle in the caravan trade, Muhammad met a wealthy widow named Khadija. She was 40 and he was 25 when they married. She bore him several children and afforded him the opportunity to live in great luxury. He began to retreat into the hills and caves of Mt. Hira near Mecca for meditation. When Muhammad was 40 years old (A.D. 610) he claimed that the angel Gabriel appeared to him and gave him the divine revelation to “read” all that God (Allah) had taught. It is from this command to “read” that the term Qur’an comes (meaning “the reading” or “the reciting”).

He began preaching his new religion in Mecca; claiming that Allah had chosen him to be a prophet against the idolatry and immorality of the Arabs in Mecca. In A.D. 619 both Muhammad’s uncle and wife die. He begins marrying many women. By 622, Muhammad and his then 70 followers were forced out of Mecca by persecutions from the Arabs, when a plot to kill Muhammad and his followers was uncovered. They retreated to Yathrib - 250 miles north of Mecca - which was later renamed Madinat an Nabi (City of the Prophet) in honor of Muhammad. Today it is commonly known as Medina.

Before the end of A.D. 622, the city of Medina had become completely converted to Muhammad’s teaching and he was made the judge of the city. In order to fund the spread of his doctrine and stability of Medina, Muhammad and his followers began to raid caravans for money. The Meccans tried to organize an army to destroy both Muhammad and his holy city, Medina. They fought back and forth for several years. In A.D. 629 Muhammad took 10,000 men from Medina and conquered Mecca. It was then that Islam’s official “convert or die” policy was instituted. Muhammad destroyed every idol in the Kaaba, the main temple of Mecca, except the Black Stone – a meteorite enshrined there. He re-consecrated the Kaaba and declared it the most holy shrine in Islam. It is for this reason that Muslims worldwide must direct their prayers daily toward Mecca; more specifically toward the Kaaba that contains the Black Stone.

Muhammad spends the next few years strengthening his position as the ruler and religious leader of Arabia by means of his “convert or die” policy. Muhammad dies in A.D. 632 at the age of 62; leaving no clear successor. Muhammad’s father-in-law, Abdullah ibn Abi Qhuhafah, nicknamed Abu Bakr (“The Truthful”), assumed the leadership role of his former son-in-law. Under Abu Bakr’s leadership, Islam spreads rapidly throughout the Middle East by means of military raids on villages and towns and the enforcement of the “convert or die” doctrine. Islam spreads throughout the Middle East, East, and into Europe.

·         Damascus, Syria – A.D. 632

·         Persia – A.D. 636

·         Jerusalem – A.D. 638

·         Caesarea and Egypt – A.D. 640

·         Most of North Africa – end of the 7^th century

·         Spain – 711

·         Constantinople (Istanbul) – A.D. 1453

·         Sicily – 9^th century

·         India, Pakistan, large portions of China – 11^th century

·         Pacific Islands – 15^th-16^th – centuries

God providentially slowed the spread of Islam into Western Europe at the Battle of Tours in A.D. 732 when the Frankish (French) king, Charles Martel (Charles “the Hammer”) defeated the Islamic leader Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman. From that point forward, the violent and military spread of Islam moved east and south; effectively surrounding Western Europe and European colonies by the end of the 16^th century.

Back to the original question. In short, the answer is “no” and “yes”. No, none of the original Biblical people groups can be identified as the single progenitors of Islam or original Muslims. The Arab peoples among whom Islam began in modern Saudi Arabia are a mixture of people groups. The Middle Eastern region from modern-day Turkey to India, the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and into the Nile Delta and north Africa have been variously dominated by the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, British, and a variety of other peoples. Each of these people groups left marks on the land, peoples, and cultures they dominated. It was not uncommon for conquering empires to shift people from one conquered area of their empire to another so that their people were intermingled and to avoid open rebellions by leaving people in their native areas. Thus, many of the people groups in the Middle East have mixed heritage from a variety of loosely related peoples.

Yes, some of the Biblical people groups are part of the original Muslims. Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar the Egyptian, lived for a time in the region of Paran after being asked to leave Abraham’s household by his father (Gen. 21:21). All we’re told about Ishmael’s time there is that his mother secured an Egyptian wife for him. We are not told that Ishmael moved anywhere else, or that he established a kingdom of his own. Ishmael the son of Abraham is last mentioned in Genesis 36 as the father of Basemath (36:3) with no further explanation. Genesis 25:17-18 says that Ishmael’s lineage settled along the eastern border of Egypt in the region from Havilah to Shur. This same region is associated with the wider region of Paran. It is a desert area full of nomadic peoples. The same passage says that Ishmael’s line lived in hostility with the other Semitic nomads and undoubtedly Esau’s posterity their entire days.

Ishmael’s people became part of the wider group of nomadic people’s in the Sinai Peninsula. Muslim historians try desperately to solidify a link between Abraham’s line and Muhammad. They claim that Ishmael founded the city of Mecca in the region of Paran (Hejaz). There is no Biblical or secular record of Ishmael ever founding a city, let alone in that region. It is plausible that Ishmael’s descendants inter-married with the nomadic Arab peoples around them and traveled into the region of Saudia Arabia. This does not identify Ishmael’s line as a single people group or founding Islamic race. Rather, Ishmael’s posterity would have mixed with the other Arab peoples coming out of Egypt and in and around the Sinai region.

Esau’s posterity, as has been shown, were primarily assimilated into the Jewish state by 129 B.C., but that does not preclude some inter-marrying and mixing with Arab peoples in and around ancient Edom prior or even after that time.

The Arab peoples at the founding of Islam in the 7^th century A.D. (and today) were a mix of Ishmaelite, Canaanite, Edomite, and other bloodlines. One must remember that the term Arab is a broad term that refers to Semitic people groups who live primarily in the region of the Sinai Peninsula, east of the Jordan River, and the Arabian Peninsula. These people groups would include descendants of Ishmael and Esau, but would also include many others who lived in the region throughout the millennia.

So, yes, some of the Biblical peoples related to Abraham (e.g. Ishmaelites and Edomites) would have been part of the bloodlines of the Arab people from whom Muhammad, Islam’s founder, and the first converts to his new religion came. However, one cannot logically, legitimately, or definitively say that Muhammad, just because he was Arab, was a direct descendant of Ishmael and Abraham. It’s not only unsupportable Biblically, but historically and genetically. Are the Jews and Arab people groups cousins of a sort? Yes, in that they are all Semitic peoples and some of the Ishmaelite and Edomite lines are represented within the broader scope of what constitutes the Arab peoples. But that does not mean all Arabs are descended from Ishmael or Esau. Think of it like this: All Ishmaelites are Arabs, but not all Arabs are Ishmaelites. The same cannot be said for Edomites as most of them were assimilated into Judean culture by the late 2^nd century B.C. It is almost impossible to identify the lines of Ishmael and Esau with any certainty today. Intermarriage, the judgment of God, and time have so diluted these bloodlines that it can be safely said that direct descendants pragmatically do not exist. 

One should also remember that Islam is a religion not a people-group. There is a difference between being Hebrew/Jewish genetically and being a Muslim. A genetic Jew (one born of Jewish descent) can adhere to a religion other than Judaism and still be Jewish. Their religious adherence does not change the genetic reality of the person's lineage. Those who adhere to Islam are not Muslim by genetics. A person cannot adhere to a religion other than Islam and still be Muslim. That person is still genetically Arabian, for example, but not Muslim. Why? Islam is solely a religion, no matter how hard Islamic historians try to tie themselves genetically to Ishmael and Abraham. As has been demonstrated, the descendants of both Ishmael and Esau have all but been assimilated into the wider spectrum of Arab people-groups with no definitive, traceable lineage. Muhammad was Arab. That truth is not questionable. What is questionable is his traceable lineage to Ishmael.

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[1] Caesar E. Farah, Islam (Minneapolis, MN: Baron’s Educational Series, Inc., 1994), p. 5-6.