Prophet Idris (AS) – Raised to a High Station حضرت ادریس علیہ السلام – بلند مقام والے نبی

Some prophets fill many pages of the Quran. Idris (AS) fills two short passages, and yet each word in them is a title of honour. In Surah Maryam, after the accounts of Zakariyya, Yahya, Maryam, ‘Isa, Ibrahim, Musa and Isma’il, Allah says: “And mention in the Book, Idris. Indeed, he was a man of truth and a prophet. And We raised him to a high station” (Maryam 19:56–57). In Surah Al-Anbiya he is named with two others: “And Isma’il and Idris and Dhul-Kifl; all were of the patient. And We admitted them into Our mercy. Indeed, they were of the righteous” (Al-Anbiya 21:85–86).

From these verses the scholars draw out five descriptions. First, he was a siddiq – a man of complete truthfulness, who believed in what came to him from Allah without hesitation and whose words and deeds matched. This is the same word used for Ibrahim (AS), for Yusuf (AS) and for Maryam, and it is the rank just below prophethood for those who are not prophets. Second, he was a nabi, a prophet who received revelation from Allah. Third, he was among the sabirin, the patient, which tells us that his life included hardship and opposition, even though no detail of it is recorded. Fourth, he was admitted into Allah’s mercy. Fifth, he was among the salihin, the righteous – the highest description Allah gives His servants, and the one the Prophet Yusuf prayed for at the end of his life (Yusuf 12:101).

The command “mention in the Book, Idris” is addressed to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and through him to every reader. Allah wanted him remembered. In a book that leaves out the names of thousands of prophets – for the Quran says, “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 fact that Idris is named at all is itself a distinction.

The arrangement in Surah Maryam is also telling. The surah moves through the family of prophets: Ibrahim and his sons, Musa and Harun, Isma’il. Then it names Idris, and immediately afterwards concludes: “Those were the ones upon whom Allah bestowed favour from among the prophets of the descendants of Adam, and of those We carried in the ship with Nuh, and of the descendants of Ibrahim and Israel, and of those whom We guided and chose. When the verses of the Most Merciful were recited to them, they fell in prostration and weeping” (Maryam 19:58). Most commentators understand “the descendants of Adam” in this verse to refer to Idris, since he was the nearest of the named prophets to Adam, and “those We carried in the ship with Nuh” to refer to Ibrahim and the others who came after the Flood. This is the main textual reason the scholars place Idris before Nuh.

Ibn Kathir summarises the scholarly position: Idris was a prophet who was granted prophethood after Adam and Shith (Seth), and before Nuh. He was praised in the Quran for truthfulness and patience, and raised in rank. Beyond this, as Ibn Kathir himself says, the certain knowledge is small and the reports are many; a believer holds firmly to the certain and treats the rest with caution.

Because the Quran and the authentic Sunnah say so little about the life of Idris (AS), a great deal has been filled in from other sources, and an honest account must separate the two. Most of the early genealogists, following the earlier scriptures, identify Idris with Enoch (Akhnukh in Arabic), the great-grandfather of Nuh, who in the Biblical line is the son of Yared, son of Mahlalil, son of Qaynan, son of Anush, son of Shith, son of Adam. Ibn Kathir records this lineage and treats it as the common view, but it is a report from the People of the Book, not a revealed fact. Some scholars, including al-Bukhari in his Sahih, mention the opinion that Idris was an ancestor of Nuh, while others held that he came after Nuh; the first view is stronger because of the verse in Surah Maryam discussed in the previous chapter.

The earliest Muslim historians, such as Ibn Ishaq, report that Idris was the first of the children of Adam to be given prophethood after Adam and Shith, that he was the first to write with a pen, the first to sew and wear stitched clothes (people before him wore skins), and the first to study the stars and arithmetic. Many add that thirty scrolls were revealed to him. These reports are widely repeated in the books of history and in some tafsirs, and there is nothing wrong in their content, but they are Isra’iliyyat – material taken from the earlier communities – and are not established by any chain going back to the Prophet ﷺ. They may be mentioned, but not believed with certainty.

The same is true of the explanation some have given for his name. Because the Arabic root of Idris resembles the word for studying (dars), some said he was called Idris because of how much he studied the scriptures of Adam and Shith. The linguists reply that Idris is a non-Arabic name, like Ibrahim and Isma’il, and that such derivations are only guesses.

Where did he live? Reports differ: some place him in Babylon in Iraq, others in Egypt. Neither can be confirmed. What can reasonably be said from the Quran is that he lived among a people who needed a prophet, that he called them to the worship of Allah alone, and that he bore difficulty with patience, for Allah placed him among “the patient.” Ibn Kathir notes that the general pattern of all the early prophets was the same: humanity after Adam began upon tawhid, drifted gradually into neglect and then into innovations, and Allah sent prophets to pull them back. Idris would have been one of those sent before the drift became the open idolatry that Nuh (AS) confronted.

One more report deserves mention because it is so widespread. Some narrations, found in the works of Ibn Jarir at-Tabari and others from Ka’b al-Ahbar and Wahb ibn Munabbih, tell a story in which Idris befriends an angel, asks to see Paradise and the Angel of Death, and is taken up to the heavens where he remains without dying; they use this to explain the words “We raised him to a high station.” Ibn Kathir reports these stories and then clearly says that they are from the Isra’iliyyat and that some of what they contain is objectionable. The Quran states the general rule: “We did not grant to any human before you eternal life” (Al-Anbiya 21:34). The believer accepts that Idris was raised in honour and in station and does not build a doctrine on tales whose source is unknown.

This chapter, then, is really a lesson in method. Islam does not forbid us from reading what earlier communities said about the prophets, but it forbids us from confusing it with revelation. The Prophet ﷺ said: “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).

The one fully authentic report about Idris (AS) outside the Quran comes from the greatest journey ever made. On the night of the Isra and Mi’raj, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was carried from Makkah to Jerusalem and then taken up through the heavens. At each heaven Jibril asked for the gate to be opened, and at each one the Prophet ﷺ was welcomed by one of his brothers among the prophets. In the first heaven he met Adam, in the second Yahya and ‘Isa, in the third Yusuf. Then: “We ascended to the fourth heaven and Jibril asked for the gate to be opened. It was said: Who is this? He said: Jibril. It was said: Who is with you? He said: Muhammad. It was said: Has he been sent for? He said: Yes. It was said: Welcome to him; what an excellent arrival! So it was opened, and when I passed through, there was Idris. Jibril said: This is Idris, so greet him. I greeted him and he returned the greeting and said: Welcome, O righteous brother and righteous prophet” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3207, 349; Sahih Muslim 162).

Two things stand out in this meeting. The first is the greeting. Adam and Ibrahim, as fathers of the Prophet ﷺ, addressed him as “righteous son and righteous prophet.” Idris, like Yahya, ‘Isa, Yusuf, Harun and Musa, greeted him as “righteous brother,” because he was not among his ancestors. This small detail is one of the reasons Ibn Kathir and others doubted the common claim that Idris was in the direct line of Nuh’s ancestors – for if he were, he would be an ancestor of the Prophet ﷺ too, and might have been expected to greet him as a son. The scholars give answers to this on both sides, and the matter remains uncertain.

The second is the connection the scholars make between this hadith and the verse “We raised him to a high station” (Maryam 19:57). Mujahid, one of the great early commentators, said that Idris was raised to the heavens alive as ‘Isa was; others said the verse refers to the greatness of his rank with Allah; others say it refers both to his rank and to his place in the fourth heaven where the Prophet ﷺ saw him. Ibn Kathir leans towards the meaning of rank and honour, while noting that the Prophet ﷺ met him in the fourth heaven just as he met the other prophets, who had certainly died, in theirs. In other words, the hadith proves where his soul resides; it does not prove that he never died.

Some reports – again from Ka’b and Wahb – say that Idris died in the fourth heaven itself after being taken there alive. These, as explained earlier, are not from the Prophet ﷺ. What is certain is that his station is high and that it was high enough for the final Messenger to be welcomed by him on the greatest night of his mission.

There is also a general hadith that touches on Idris by implication. When the Prophet ﷺ was asked how many prophets there had been, he said: “One hundred and twenty-four thousand,” and when asked who was the first, he said, “Adam,” and spoke of those who were messengers among them (Musnad Ahmad 22288; Ibn Hibban 361; its chain has been discussed, and some scholars accept it as hasan). Idris belongs to that great company whose names are mostly unknown to us, with the difference that Allah chose to name him and to praise him.

For a believer, the meeting in the fourth heaven also teaches something about death and what lies beyond it. The prophets are alive with their Lord in a way we do not fully understand, they recognise one another, they rejoice at the honour given to the last of them, and they greet one another with peace. Idris, who lived at the very dawn of history, and Muhammad ﷺ, who came at its culmination, met as brothers in a single religion: the worship of Allah alone.

Idris (AS) left no scripture that we possess, no city that bears his name with certainty, no miracle recorded in the Quran, and no account of his death that can be verified. And yet Allah has guaranteed that until the end of time, in every language on earth, people will read: “Indeed, he was a man of truth and a prophet, and We raised him to a high station.” That is a legacy of a different kind: the legacy of a person whose whole worth lies in what he was before Allah, not in what he built or left behind.

The first lesson is about the measure of a life. The world remembers people for monuments, conquests and inventions. Allah remembered Idris for truthfulness, patience and righteousness. Those three qualities are available to every believer, in every age and circumstance, whether he is famous or unknown. The man who sells vegetables honestly, bears his illness patiently and prays sincerely is walking the same road for which Idris was praised.

The second lesson is about patience. The Quran places Idris in the company of Isma’il and Dhul-Kifl as “of the patient” (Al-Anbiya 21:85). We do not know what he endured. Perhaps that is itself the point: Allah does not need us to know the details of a servant’s trials in order to reward him for bearing them. “Indeed, the patient will be given their reward without account” (Az-Zumar 39:10).

The third lesson is about knowledge and its limits. The reports that Idris was the first to write, to sew, to study the stars, made him in the imagination of many Muslims the patron of the sciences, and there is nothing wrong with hoping that these reports are true. But the discipline that Ibn Kathir and the scholars of hadith model in his story – saying “this is from the Quran,” “this is authentic from the Prophet ﷺ,” and “this is from the People of the Book and is not established” – is itself a form of knowledge that Islam values more than any legend. A Muslim is permitted to say “I do not know.” About Idris, that is often the correct answer.

The fourth lesson concerns the brotherhood of the prophets. Idris greeted Muhammad ﷺ as “righteous brother.” The Prophet ﷺ said: “The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different but their religion is one” (Sahih al-Bukhari 3443; Sahih Muslim 2365). From the first man to the last Messenger, every prophet called to the same thing. A Muslim who believes in Idris, though he knows almost nothing of his life, is affirming that the message of Islam did not begin in Arabia in the seventh century but at the beginning of human history.

The fifth lesson is about honour from Allah. “We raised him to a high station.” Whatever the precise meaning – rank, or the fourth heaven, or both – it was Allah who raised him. People spend their lives trying to raise their own status. Idris reminds us that the only elevation that lasts is the one Allah grants, and that He grants it to the truthful and the patient.

Ibn Kathir closes his short account of Idris by moving on to Nuh, whose people had by then fallen into idol worship. Between those two prophets stretch centuries about which we know nothing. In them lived the children of Adam, learning, drifting, being called back, and in their midst a man of truth whom Allah remembers by name. May the peace of Allah be upon him.