Prophet Al-Yasa (AS) – The Successor of Ilyas حضرت الیسع علیہ السلام – الیاس علیہ السلام کے جانشین

Al-Yasa is one of the prophets whom the Quran names but whose story it does not tell. He appears twice. The first mention is in Surah Al-Anam, in the long list of prophets descended from Ibrahim whom Allah guided: 'And Ismail and Al-Yasa and Yunus and Lut, and all of them We preferred over the worlds' (Al-Anam 6:86). The second is in Surah Sad, immediately after the stories of Dawud, Sulaiman and Ayyub: 'And remember Ismail, Al-Yasa and Dhul-Kifl, and all are among the best' (Sad 38:48).

These two verses contain everything the Quran says about him, and they say a great deal. In the first, he is 'preferred over the worlds,' a phrase the Quran uses for the family of Ibrahim and the family of Imran (Aal Imran 3:33) and for the Children of Israel in the days of their faithfulness. In the second, he is 'among the best,' al-akhyar, a word the same surah uses a few verses earlier for Ibrahim, Ishaq and Yaqub, 'those of strength and vision' (Sad 38:45-47). Allah commands the Prophet ﷺ to 'remember' him, as He commands him to remember Dawud and Ayyub. To be remembered by command of Allah, in the company of such men, is an honour that needs no narrative.

The scholars of tafsir identify Al-Yasa with the prophet called Elisha in the Hebrew scriptures, the disciple and successor of Elijah. His Arabic name, Al-Yasa, is an Arabised form of the Hebrew Elisha, and the Arabic article at its beginning is part of the name, as it is in a few other foreign names in Arabic. Ibn Kathir records from the historians that he was Al-Yasa ibn Akhtub, of the Children of Israel, and that he had been the companion of Ilyas, learned from him, and was appointed by Allah as prophet after Ilyas was taken. Some reports give his lineage differently or trace him to the tribe of Ephraim. None of this is from the Quran or the Prophet ﷺ; it is the collective memory of the People of the Book as transmitted by the early Muslim historians, and it is mentioned here only as such.

Why does the Quran name prophets without telling their stories? Allah says to the Prophet ﷺ: 'And We have already sent messengers before you. Among them are those whose stories We have related to you, and among them are those whose stories We have not related to you' (Ghafir 40:78). The Quran is not a history book; it narrates what serves guidance. The story of Ilyas was told because the confrontation with Baal is a lesson for every age. Al-Yasa's mission was, as far as the sources suggest, a continuation of that same work among the same people, and the lesson had already been given. By naming him, the Quran confirms that he was a true prophet, that he is among the best of Allah's servants, and that a Muslim must believe in him; by not narrating his deeds, it leaves the details to be sought elsewhere, with the caution that applies to all such sources.

The placement of his name is itself instructive. In Surah Al-Anam he stands between Ismail and Yunus; in Surah Sad between Ismail and Dhul-Kifl. In both lists, he is linked with Ismail, the ancestor of the Arabs, which reminds the reader that the prophets of the Children of Israel and the prophet of the Arabs are a single family with a single message. 'Those are the ones whom Allah has guided, so from their guidance take an example' (Al-Anam 6:90) is the conclusion of the list in which Al-Yasa appears. His name is among those whose guidance the Prophet ﷺ was commanded to follow.

The historical setting of Al-Yasa's prophethood is the same as that of Ilyas: the northern kingdom of the Children of Israel in the generations after Sulaiman, when the worship of Baal and the other gods of the Canaanites had spread among the tribes and their kings. Ilyas had confronted that corruption, and the Quran records that his people denied him, though 'the chosen servants of Allah' among them were saved (As-Saffat 37:127-128). Al-Yasa inherited this situation: a people partly returned to Allah, partly still attached to their idols, ruled by kings who swung between the two.

Ibn Kathir, following Wahb ibn Munabbih and the historians, relates that Ilyas took Al-Yasa as his companion and that when Allah raised Ilyas or took him from his people, Al-Yasa became prophet in his place and continued to call the Children of Israel to the worship of Allah alone and to the law of the Tawrah. He is described as having lived among them for a long time, commanding good and forbidding evil, and the historians say that the kings of Israel in his time were many and that most of them were corrupt. All of this agrees with what the Hebrew scriptures record of Elisha, and none of it is contradicted by the Quran, but it must be remembered that it rests on those scriptures and on the reports of early narrators, not on any sound hadith.

The People of the Book attribute many miracles to Al-Yasa: the purifying of a poisoned spring, the multiplication of oil for a widow, the healing of a foreign commander of leprosy, the raising of a dead child, and others. Muslim historians sometimes repeat these. Ibn Kathir mentions them briefly and makes clear that they are from the Isra'iliyyat. A Muslim may believe that Allah gave Al-Yasa signs, as He gave every prophet signs, but the particular stories are not established and should not be narrated as certain. The Quran, which freely narrates the miracles of Musa, Isa, Salih and Sulaiman, chose to narrate none for Al-Yasa, and that silence should be respected.

What can be said with confidence is the substance of his message, because the message of every prophet was the same. He called his people to worship Allah alone, to abandon Baal and the gods of the nations, to hold to the Tawrah, to deal justly, and to fear the Day of Account. The Quran states this as the message of all the messengers: 'And We sent not before you any messenger except that We revealed to him that there is no deity except Me, so worship Me' (Al-Anbiya 21:25). Al-Yasa's life was spent delivering that sentence to a people who had heard it from Musa and Dawud and Ilyas and who needed to hear it again.

There is an important lesson in the continuity between Ilyas and Al-Yasa. Prophets did not always come as lone figures; they trained successors. Musa prepared Yusha, who led the Children of Israel into the land after him. Ilyas prepared Al-Yasa. The Prophet ﷺ prepared his Companions, and said that the scholars are the heirs of the prophets (Sunan Abi Dawud 3641; Jami at-Tirmidhi 2682). A mission that depends entirely on one person ends with that person. The mission of Ilyas did not end when he was taken, because Al-Yasa was ready. In this, even a prophet whose story is not told teaches something essential about how the work of calling to Allah is carried from one generation to the next.

The Quran does not describe the death of Al-Yasa, and the sound Sunnah is silent on it. The historians say that he died among the Children of Israel and that after him their condition worsened, with sins multiplying and kings growing more tyrannical, until Allah sent later prophets, among them, in the view of many, Yunus and then those who came before the Babylonian captivity. Some accounts say that the prophet who followed him was Dhul-Kifl, whose name is joined to his in Surah Sad, but this is speculation built on the order of names rather than on any text. What is certain is that Al-Yasa completed his mission and returned to his Lord as one of 'the best.'

The story of Al-Yasa, short as it is, carries a lesson about the sources of Islamic knowledge. The Quran names him and honours him. The Prophet ﷺ did not, in any sound narration, tell stories about him. Everything else comes from the People of the Book. The Prophet ﷺ gave his ummah a clear rule for such material: 'Do not believe the People of the Book and do not disbelieve them, but say: We believe in Allah and what has been revealed to us' (Sahih al-Bukhari 4485). He also said, 'Narrate from the Children of Israel, and there is no harm' (Sahih al-Bukhari 3461), permitting their accounts to be related, while the scholars added that this applies to what does not contradict the Quran and Sunnah and is not narrated as established fact. Ibn Kathir applied this rule to Al-Yasa exactly: he recorded what the historians said, noted that it was from them, and built nothing on it.

There is also a lesson about honour. Al-Yasa is proof that a prophet's standing with Allah does not depend on the fame of his deeds. He is mentioned in the same breath as Ismail, from whom the Prophet ﷺ descended, and in the same list as Yunus, whose story is told in detail. Allah calls him 'among the best' with exactly the same word He uses for Ibrahim. A believer who lives his whole life calling to Allah in a small place, unknown to history, is not thereby less in the sight of Allah than one whose work fills books. The Quran teaches this by placing a prophet whose deeds it never mentions among those whose deeds it narrates at length, and by giving him the same greeting.

Finally, there is the lesson of continuity. From Musa to Yusha, from Dawud to Sulaiman, from Ilyas to Al-Yasa, from Zakariya to Yahya, the Quran shows prophethood passing from hand to hand among the Children of Israel across many centuries. Each prophet called to the same thing. Each faced a people who had drifted. Each succeeded in part and was denied in part. The chain continued until it reached Isa (AS), the last prophet of the Children of Israel, and then passed to the Arabs with Muhammad ﷺ, the seal of all prophets. Al-Yasa is a single link in that chain, but a chain is made of links, and the Quran forgets none of them. 'Those are the ones whom Allah has guided, so from their guidance take an example' (Al-Anam 6:90). Among 'those' is Al-Yasa, the successor of Ilyas, preferred over the worlds and counted among the best.