According to
Wahb ibn Munabbih, there was a
Tal Faran ("Hill of Faran") on the outskirts of Mecca, mentioned in his book
Kitab al-Tijan, a Pre-Islamic Arabic folklore compilation. The Arab geographer
Al-Maqdisi (d. 991) mentioned in his book that the
Red Sea branches into two "at the extremity of
al-Hijaz at a place called Faran". The association of Paran in Genesis 21:21 with Ishmael and the Ishmaelites is affirmed by the Muslim geographer
Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1229) who refers to "Faran, an arabized Hebrew word, one of the names of
Mecca mentioned in the Torah".
Islamic and Arabic traditions hold that the wilderness of Paran is, broadly speaking, the Hejaz, the northern half of
Tihamah, stretching along the east side of the Red Sea starting from Jordan and Sinai, and that the specific site where Ishmael settled is that of Mecca, near the mountains of Paran. The "Desert of Paran" is also interpreted as Hijaz in an old Arabic translation of the
Samaritan Pentateuch. When it was translated into English in 1851, it was found to include a footnote making this interpretation.
Al-Hamdani (d. 947) in his book
Geography of the Arabic Peninsula says that the Paran mountains around Mecca were named after Paran son of
Amalek.
Sam'ni in his
Book of Surnames also says that the surname
Farani is derived from the Faran mountains near Mecca in Hijaz Haggai Mazuz asserts that Muslim polemicists' (like the Jewish convert
Samawʾal al-Maghribī, 1125–1175 CE) appropriation of Deut. 33:2 has antecedence in Jewish tradition itself, as some
Midrashim and
Targumim, before the rise of Islam itself, posed a connection between Paran and Ishmael-Arabs. For instance, commentating on the
Sifrei Debarīm, a
halakhic midrash on Deuteronomy, dated from the 3rd to the 5th century CE, he says: the link between Paran and the Arabs (actually the Arabic language), who are also called Ishmaelites after Ishmael (among other names), is very early although somewhat vague. ==Geographical location==