Ibrahim's Ax (Ibrahim = Abraham)

After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don't you eat? The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left.
--The Koran

Ismail was Ibrahim's son. It was Ismail that Ibrahim wanted to sacrifice for Yahweh (with an ax).

A reader pointed out that "Ismail" is also a variant on the narrator in Moby Dick, and although Cho was an English major, the relationship between Moby Dick's Ismail and an ax/e is less clear.

-----
source: http://bangkokker.blogspot.com/