After Ishmael’s birth to Hagar and his settlement in the wilderness of Paran (Genesis 21:20-21), his descendants become the Ishmaelite tribal confederation. Genesis 25:12-18 lists twelve princes — sons of Ishmael — who settle ‘from Havilah to Shur’ across the northern Arabian Peninsula and Sinai. The Ishmaelites appear throughout the Hebrew Bible as traders and caravan merchants — it is Ishmaelite traders who carry Joseph to Egypt (Genesis 37:25-28). These tribes are the ancestral population of the Arabian Peninsula that eventually gives rise, through the Adnanite Arab lineage, to the Quraysh tribe and ultimately to Muhammad.