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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.


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