Sacred Texts
Islam
Index
Previous
Next
Elias (Elijah) and Alyasa` (Elisha) (PUT)
They said a lot about the conditions of Elijah and his stories and in summary
it is that Joshua ben Nun had made a living for the Israelites in the lands
of Canaan after Moses and he divided the lands between them, so a tribe
of them went to Baalbek and spread in its land and it is the tribe that
Elijah came from, so God sent him to them, and they had an unjust king
which made his people worship an idol called Ba`al (Baal) and this is mentioned
in God's saying: And lo! Elias was of those sent (to warn), When he said
unto his folk: Will ye not ward off (evil) ? Will ye cry unto Baal and
forsake the Best of creators, Allah, your Lord and Lord of your forefathers
? But they denied him, so they surely will be haled forth (to the doom)..etc(Al-Sâfât:123-127),
and they say that the king had unchaste wife that he would make her in
his place whenever he is away and she judges among the people, and he had
a faithful and a believer writer that helped three hundred believers to
escape from her wrath, and there were no one on earth that were unchaste
as she was, and she got married to seven kings from the Israelites until
she gave birth for ninety children, and the king had a faithful neighbour
and one of the belivers and she killed him and tookover his fortune and
her husband was not satisfied for this as it is mentioned, and so then
God sent Elijah to them to call them back to worship God but they disbelieved
in him and banished him out but he got back to them and called them again
and warning them against the wrath of God and telling them about the favours
of God but all of that increased their tyranny so he promised himself that
the king and his wife will be doomed if they did not repent and he told
them about it, so then their wrath increased towards him and wanted to
torture and kill him but he escaped away from them into some mountains
and he stayed there for seven years eating from the herbs of the earth.
Then the king chose fifty men and advised them to trick Elijah and
to tell him that they believed in him and in his Lord so that he would
feel safe towards them and then they can bring him to his court to kill
him, so they went to the mountain where Elijah was and they cried: O prophet
of God, show us yourself for we believed in you, so he (Elijah) loved to
have their faith and he said then: O Lord, if they were true then allow
me to go down for them and if they were not then fire them and burn them,
and as he finished his words a fire from the sky fell upon them and burned
them, and the tidings reached the king and he got more mad, so then he
sent the faithful writer with some people to him (Elijah) and he advised
them to show the faith of the king and his wife and all his people, and
that the king forbade the people to worship the idols and ordered them
to mention the God of the Israelites, so then when the writer reached the
mountain and called for him he recognized his voice and he got down to
him and the faithful writer then said to him: that tyrant sent me to you,
and he told him everything happened in the king's court and he warned him
against their tricks and told him that they have no goal but to kill him.
And God inspired to him that everything comes from them is a trick
to get you, and when the faithful writer came back to the king, and the
latter was sad because of the death of his dear son, he (the king) asked
about Elijah, so he (the writer) said: I have no knowledge about it, and
because of the sadness of the king for his son he did not investinage about
it more than that. Then Elijah did pray to God to take revenge from the
wrong-doers and to hold the rains for seven years and God answered his
pray for this and their land became dry and the adversities came hard upon
them and death spread so fast among them and they knew that it was because
of the pray of Elijah. Then they gathered around him and said to him: we
are under your command, so God ordered him to answer them so he went down
to them and with him was his pupil Elisha, so they met him and asked him
for the rain and they shall believe in him and in his words and obey his
Lord if rain fell again, so when he made sure of their faith he prayed
for God and He rained them and made the earth plant for them, so Elijah
left them and they were faithful, but then the devil tookover them and
made them astray so they neglected His favours and rebelled against His
will so God then made an enemy for them to fight against them and win against
them and killed them and also their king and his wife. It is mentioned
that Elijah was ordered by God to give his advices and will to Elisha and
so he did and he advised him with what God commanded and ordered him with
what God commanded and warned him against what God forbade and God planted
the feathers for Elijah and made him wear the garments of light and raised
him to heavens.
It is mentioned that Elijah threw his garment from the air upon Elisha
and God made him a prophet upon the Israelites and inspired to him and
made him victorious, so he was among the Israelites a holy person that
guides them to the truth. People differed about Elijah, some said he is
Al-Khidhr (PUH), and some said he is Edris (Enoch), and others said he
is one of the Israelites that God sent him to them as a prophet and he
is a descendant of Aaron ben Amram and the cousin of Elisha, so he is Elias
(Elijah) ben Yâseen ben Nit-hâsâ (Phinehas) ben Eli`ezer
(Eleazar) ben Aaron ben Amram [seems the name Yâseen had been sandwiched
for I did not find any trace of a complete ancestry for Elijah in Torah].
As for Elisha, he is Alyasa` (Elisha) ben Akhtub (Shaphat) [supposedly
Akhtub is the same as Shaphat, the name mentioned in Torah as the father
of Elisha], and he is the cousin of Elijah as he is famous for mostly,
and Elijah made him a viceroy over the Israelites when God raised him and
he (Elisha) is the pupil of Elijah as it is mentioned in the books of biographies,
and God prophesized him after him (Elijah) and inspired to him. In a speech
for Al-Ridhâ (PUH) that was to disaprove against the prelate of the
christians about Elisha when he said: Elisha did as Jesus did, he walked
on water surface and resurrected the dead people by the permission of God
and cured the dimsighted and the leper by the permission of God, but his
nation did not take him as a god instead of the Lord, as it is mentioned
in Safinat Al-Bihâr by Al-Muhaddiþ Al-Qummi. As it is reported
by Ibn `Abbâs and Muhammad ben Is-hâq and others, they said:
God sent Elijah after Ezekiel after many great events among the Israelites,
and Joshua ben Nun had invaded the lands of Canaan and the Israelites ruled
over and he had divided the lands among them, and so one tribe went to
Baalbek and it is the tribe of ELijah and God sent him as a prophet to
his people. Then he (Elijah) went to the wilderness and made Elisha a viceroy
over the Israelites, and God then raised him up and cut off his lust for
food and drink [meaning he does not get hungry nor thursty] and He made
feathers as his garments so he turned to be a human angel from earth and
heavens. What is understood from the speeches of the Household (PUT) is
that Elijah did not die and still living as Al-Khidhr.
They say that ELijah is the man of lands (deserts) and Al-Khidhr is
the man of islands and they both gather together in the day of `Arafah
[in the season of pilgrimage in the 12th month in islamic calendar] of
every year in `Arafât [a mountain name in Mecca], and it is mentioned
that Elijah had several meetings with the Imams from the Household of Muhammad
(PUT) in Safâ [Safâ and Marwâ, two hills or mountains
that people cross between them seven times at pilgrimage time to reflect
how Hagar crossed them before looking for water for her son Ishmael (PUH)].
There are long narrations and lot of them, and one of them is that Elijah
asked Al-Sâdiq (PUH) lot of questions from the wisdom of the apparent
and the disapparent of things, and the Imam (Al-Sâdiq PUH) was answering
every question, and when his questions became so much, the Imam (PUH) laughed
or smiled for the quantity of questions, and the Imam kept on explaining
his answers for the questions, and then ELijah said: I did not ask about
something and I have no knowledge about it, but I liked this talk to be
remembered and known for your followers and to make them strong. He asked
him about the secrets of Imamism and prophecy, and about the Imam being
inspired by God and taught by the prophet and so on. It is reporterd by
Anas ben Mâlik: the prophet (PUH) heard a voice from the top of a
mountain that was saying: O Lord make me of the forgiven nation, so the
prophet went to the direction of the voice and he found there an old man
that was three hundred cubits tall, and when he saw the prophet (PUH) he
hugged him and said: I eat every year for once and this is the time for
it, and then a table came down from heaven and they ate together, and hewas
Elijah (PUH). It is mentioned that a group of people went to Al-Sâdiq
(PUH) and found him speaking a language other than Arabic and crying as
well, so when they heard him they wondered about what they saw and heard,
so they asked him about it and he (PUH) said: yes, I remembered ELijah
and he was one of the best worshippers among the Israelites so I said as
he used to say in his prostration, then he said it in Syriac and by God
we did not see any prelate nor a priest that can speak it better than him,
and then he interpreted what he said in Arabic, so he said: he (Elijah)
used to say in his prostration: would You punish me with Your hell and
my feelings were thursty for You? Would you punish me and I put my face
into the sand for You? Would You punish me and I avoided sins for You?
Would You punish me and I was awake all my nights for You? ..etc, and God
then inspired to him (Elijah): raise your head up for I will not punish
you for I fullfil the promises that I give. We pointed out that the narrations
about Elijah are a lot, so let us have enough with this much and it is
enough to know him and to take the sermons.
Next: Some Conditions of Ðul-Kifl (PUH)