Prophet Ilyas

The story of Ilyas

« And Ilyas is indeed of the messengers. When he said to his people: will you not fear? Do you call upon Ba'l and forsake the best of creators: Allah, your Lord and the Lord of your first forefathers? They denied him therefore: they will surely be brought, except the sincere servants of Allah.

And We left for him among the later ones: peace upon Ilyasine: thus do We recompense the doers of good: he is of Our believing servants. »

Surat as-Saffat, 123-132

He is Ilyas ibn Tasbi. Ilyas ibn Yassin ibn Finhas ibn al-'Azar ibn Haroun. Ilyas ibn al-'Azir ibn al-'Azar ibn Haroun ibn 'Imran. His being sent was toward the people of Baalbek, west of Damascus: he called them to the worship of Allah (exalted is He): and to abandoning the worship of an idol they had: which they called Ba'l: Ba'l was a woman named Ba'l: and the first is sounder. « Will you not fear? Do you call upon Ba'l and forsake the best of creators: Allah, your Lord and the Lord of your first forefathers? » They denied him therefore and opposed him: and intended to kill him: he fled from them: and concealed himself from them.

Abu Ya'qoub al-Adra'i said, from Yazid ibn Abd as-Samad, from Hicham ibn 'Ammar: and I heard him who mentions, from Ka'b al-Ahbar: Ilyas hid from their king in the cave which is beneath ad-Damm ten years: until Allah destroyed the king: and appointed another in his place: Ilyas came therefore to him: offered him Islam: he embraced Islam: and of his people a great number embraced: except ten thousand of them: he commanded concerning them: they were killed, the last of them.

And Ibn Abi ad-Dunya said: Abu Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Hachim narrated to me: 'Oumar ibn Sa'id ad-Dimachqi narrated to us: Sa'id ibn Abd al-'Aziz narrated to us, from some of the sheikhs of Damascus: Ilyas (peace be upon him) remained fleeing his people in a cave of a mountain: twenty nights: forty nights: the crows brought him his provision.

And Muhammad ibn Sa'd said: Hicham ibn Muhammad ibn as-Sa'ib al-Kalbi informed us, from his father: the first prophet sent was Idris: then Nuh: then Ibrahim: then Isma'il and Ishaq: then Ya'qoub: then Youssouf: then Lout: then Hud: then Salih: then Chou'ayb: then Moussa and Haroun, the two sons of 'Imran: then Ilyas ibn Tasbi ibn al-'Azir ibn Haroun ibn 'Imran ibn Yahth ibn Lawi ibn Ya'qoub ibn Ishaq ibn Ibrahim (peace be upon them). Thus he said: and in this order there is scrutiny.

Four prophets alive: Ilyas, Khidr, Idris and Issa: and we have already given the saying of him who mentions that Ilyas and Khidr meet every year in the month of Ramadan at Bayt al-Maqdis: and that they make the pilgrimage every year: and drink of Zamzam water a drink sufficing them until its like of the following year: and we cited the hadith in which is that they meet at 'Arafat every year: and we showed that nothing of that holds: that Khidr died: and likewise Ilyas (peace be upon them). And what Wahb ibn Munabbih and others mentioned: that when he invoked his Lord (exalted is He) to take him to Him, when they denied him and hurt him: a beast of the color of fire came: he rode it: Allah made him feathers: clothed him in light: removed from him the pleasure of food and drink: and he became angelic in the human way: heavenly in the earthly way: and he recommended Ilyasa' ibn Akhtoub: and in this there is scrutiny: and it is of the isra'iliyyat that are neither believed nor disbelieved: rather, it appears that its soundness is remote: and Allah knows best.

Abu Abdallah al-Hafiz informed us: Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Sa'id al-Ma'dani narrated to me at Bukhara: Abdallah ibn Mahmoud narrated to us: 'Abdan ibn Sinan narrated to us: Ahmad ibn Abdallah al-Barqi narrated to me: Yazid ibn Yazid al-Balawi narrated to us: Abu Ishaq al-Fazari narrated to us, from al-Awza'i, from Mak'houl, from Anas ibn Malik: we were with the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) on a journey: we alighted at a halt: « O Allah, make me of the community of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): the community covered in mercy: forgiven: given reward. » I looked toward the valley: and there was a man whose height exceeds three hundred cubits: « Who are you? » « Anas ibn Malik: the servant of the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). » « Where is he?

» « He hears your speech. » « Go then to him and convey him the greeting: your brother Ilyas conveys you the greeting. » I came therefore to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and informed him: he came until he met him: they embraced and greeted: then they sat conversing: « O messenger of Allah: I eat in the year but one day: and this day is my day of breaking the fast: so let us eat, you and I. » A table descended from the heaven to them: with bread: and fish: and celery: they ate and fed me: and we prayed the asr: then he bade him farewell: and I saw him passing in the clouds toward the heaven.

» And this hadith is weak entirely: and the wonder is that the hakim Abu Abdallah an-Nayçabouri extracted it in the Mustadrak: and this is of what one completes over the Sahih: for it is a fabricated hadith: contradicting the authentic hadiths: and its meaning does not hold either: it has already been established in the Sahih that the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: « Allah created Adam: his height of sixty cubits » up to his saying: « then the creation has not ceased to diminish: until now »: and in it that he did not come to the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): but that it be he who went to him: and this does not hold: for he was worthier of striving before the seal of the prophets: and in the hadith that he eats once in the year: and it has already been related from Wahb that Allah stripped him the pleasure of food and drink: and in what preceded from some of them that he drinks of Zamzam each year a drink sufficing him until its like of the other year: and these are contradictory things: all of them false: nothing of them holds.

And Ibn Asakir cited this hadith by another route: and he acknowledged its weakness: and this is a wonder from him: that he spoke on it: he brought it by the route of Khayr ibn 'Arafa, from Hani ibn al-Hasan, from Baqiyya, from al-Awza'i, from Mak'houl, from Wathila ibn al-Asqa': and he mentioned its like at length: and in it is that that was at the expedition of Tabouk: and that the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sent to him Anas ibn Malik and Houdayfa ibn al-Yaman: and he was taller than us by two or three cubits: and he apologized for not coming lest the camels be frightened: and in it that when the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) met him: they ate of the food of Paradise: « I have in every forty days one eating: and on the table: bread: and pomegranates: and grapes: and bananas: and dates: and herbs: except the leek. » And in it that the messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) asked him about Khidr: « I saw him a year ago: you will meet him before me: convey him my greeting from me.

» And this indicates that Khidr and Ilyas (peace be upon them), supposing their existence and the soundness of this hadith: would not have met him until the ninth year of the hijra: and this does not stand in law: and this is a fabrication also: and Ibn Asakir cited routes concerning those who met Ilyas of the worshippers: and all of them are not to be rejoiced in: because of the weakness of their chain: or the ignorance of the one related to him in it: and the best of them is what Abu Bakr Ibn Abi ad-Dunya said: Bichr ibn Mou'adh narrated to me: Hammad ibn Waqid narrated to us, from Thabit: we were with Mouss'ab ibn az-Zoubayr in the Sawad of Koufa: I entered a garden to pray two rak'a in it: I opened: Ha-Mim: « The revelation of the Book from Allah, the Mighty, the Knowing: Forgiver of sin: Accepter of repentance: Severe in punishment: Possessor of abundance.

» And there was a man behind me upon a gray mule: upon him Yemeni patched garments: « When you say: Forgiver of sin: say: O Forgiver of sin, forgive my sin: Accepter of repentance: say: O Accepter of repentance, accept my repentance: Severe in punishment: say: O Severe in punishment, punish me not: Possessor of abundance: say: O Possessor of abundance, be generous to me with mercy. » I turned: and there was no one: « Has a man passed by you upon a gray mule: with Yemeni patched garments? » « No one passed by us. » They thought only that it was Ilyas.

« They denied him therefore: they will surely be brought »: that is: to the punishment: either in this world and the Hereafter: or in the Hereafter: and the first is more manifest according to what the exegetes and historians mentioned. « Except the sincere servants of Allah »: that is: except whoever of them believed. « And We left for him among the later ones »: that is: We made to remain after him a good remembrance for him among the worlds: he is mentioned only in good. « Peace upon Ilyasine »: that is: peace upon Ilyas: and the Arabs append the nun in many names: and change it from other than her: Isma'il and Isma'in: and Isra'il and Isra'in: and Ilyas and Ilyasin.

And he who recited the variant with ali: that is: upon the family of Muhammad (may the blessings of Allah and His peace be upon him). And it has been related from him, by the route of Ishaq, from Ubada ibn Rabi'a, from Ibn Mas'oud: « Ilyas: he is Idris. » And ad-Dahhak ibn Mouzahim inclined to that: and Qatada related it: and Muhammad ibn Ishaq: and the correct is that he is other: as has already been established: and Allah the Most High knows best the right.