Was `Uzayr (Ezra) Called The Son Of God?

M S M Saifullah & Mustafa Ahmed

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

Last Modified: 1st September 1999

Assalamu-`alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

`Uzayr, who was exalted by a community of Jews, is identified as Ezra by Muslim

commentators. The Qur'an says:

The Jews call `Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah.
That is the saying from their mouth; (In this) they are intimate; what the Unbelievers
of the old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the
truth. [Qur'an 9:30]

Before we take care of the origin of the issue of exalting Ezra to son of God by some
Jews, let us first discuss the life of the man himself.

Ezra (5th-4th century BC, Babylon and Jerusalem) was a religious leader of the Jews
who returned from exile in Babylon, and a reformer who reconstituted the Jewish
community on the basis of the Torah (Law, or the regulations of the first five books of
the Old Testament). This monumental work of Ezra helped to make Judaism a
religion in which law was central, that enabled the Jews to survive as a community
when they were dispersed all over the world. Ezra has with some justice been called
the father of Judaism since his efforts did much to give Jewish religion the form that

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was to characterize it for centuries after the specific form the Jewish religion took
after the Babylonian Exile. So important was he in the eyes of his people that later
tradition regarded him as no less than a second Moses(P). Regarding the tomb of Ezra
Encyclopaedia Judaica says:

There are number of traditions concerning the site of

Ezra's tomb. According to Josephus it is in Jerusalem;
other hold that he was buried in Urta or in Zunzumu on
the Tigris; but the general accepted version is that his
tomb is situated in Uzer, a village near Basra. This
tradition is mentioned by Benjamin of Tuleda, Pethahiah
of Regensburg, Judah Alharizi, and other travelers,
Jewish and non-Jewish who visited Babylonia.[1]

It is to be kept in mind that the knowledge about Ezra is derived from the Biblical
books of Ezra and Nehemiah, supplemented by the Apocryphal (not included in the
Jewish and Protestant canons of the Old Testament but present in Roman Catholic and
Greek Orthodox Churchs' canon) book of I Esdras (Latin Vulgate form of the name
Ezra), which preserves the Greek text of Ezra and a part of Nehemiah.

It is interesting to note that the Jews in Arabia, during the advent of Islam, were
involved in mystical speculation as well as anthromorphizing and worshipping an
angel that functions as the substitute creator of the universe. That angel is usually
identified as Metatron[2]. Newby notes that:

...we can deduce that the inhabitants of Hijaz during

Muhammad's time knew portions, at least, of 3 Enoch in
association with the Jews. The angels over which Metatron
becomes chief are identified in the Enoch traditions as
the sons of God, the Bene Elohim, the Watchers, the
fallen ones as the causer of the flood. In 1 Enoch, and 4
Ezra, the term Son of God can be applied to the Messiah,
but most often it is applied to the righteous men, of
whom Jewish tradition holds there to be no more righteous
than the ones God elected to translate to heaven alive.
It is easy, then, to imagine that among the Jews of the
Hijaz who were apparently involved in mystical
speculations associated with the merkabah, Ezra, because
of the traditions of his translation, because of his
piety, and particularly because he was equated with Enoch
as the Scribe of God, could be termed one of the Bene
Elohim. And, of course, he would fit the description of
religious leader (one of the ahbar of the Qur'an 9:31)
whom the Jews had exalted.[3]

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The Islamic exegetes have mentioned that there existed a community of Jews in
Yemen who considered Ezra as son of God. Hirschberg says in Encyclopaedia
Judaica:

H. Z. Hirschberg proposed another assumption, based on

the words of Ibn Hazm, namely, that the 'righteous who
live in Yemen believed that 'Uzayr was indeed the son of
Allah.' According to other Muslim sources, there were
some Yemenite Jews who had converted to Islam who
believed that Ezra was the messiah. For Muhammad, Ezra,
the apostle (!) of messiah, can be seen in the same light
as the Christian saw Jesus, the messiah, the son of
Allah.[4]

George Sale makes an interesting comment concerning the Muslim as well as Judeo-
Christian opinion on this issue.

This grievous charge against the Jews, the commentators

endeavour to support by telling us, that it is meant of
some ancient heterdox Jews, or else of some Jews of
Medina; who said so for no other reason, than for that
the law being utterly lost and forgotten during the
Babylonish captivity, Ezra having been raised to life
after he had been dead one hundred years, dictated the
whole anew unto the scribes, out of his own memory; at
which they greatly marvelled, and declared that he could
not have done it, unless he were the son of God. Al-
Beidawi adds, that the imputation must be true, because
this verse was read to the Jews and they did not
contradict it; which they were ready enough to do in
other instances.

That Ezra did restore not only the Pentateuch, but also
the other books of the Old Testament, by divine
revelation, was the opinion of several of the Christian
fathers, who are quoted by Dr.Prideaux, and of some other
writers; which they seem to have first borrowed from a
passage in that very ancient apocryphal book, called in
our English Bible, the second book of Esdras. Dr.
Prideaux tells us, that herein the Fathers attributed
more to Ezra, than the Jews themselves, which he laboured
much in, and went a great way in the perfecting of it. It
is not improbable however, that the fiction came
originally from the Jews, though they be now of another
opinion, and I cannot fix it upon them by any direct
proof. For, not to insist upon the testimony of the

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Mohammedans (which yet I cannot but think of some little
weight in a point of this nature,) it is allowed by the
most sagacious critics, that the second book of Ezra was
written by a Chrisitian indeed, but yet one who had been
bred a Jew, and was intimately acquainted with the fables
of the Rabbins; and the story itself is perfectly in the
taste and was of thinking of those men.[5]

Last but not the least, a Christian writer also proposed that Muhammad(P) got the
information of Jews exalting Ezra to son of God from the Samaritans who said the
Ezra had acted presumptuously and had changed the old divine alphabetical character
of the holy Books of the Law - a character still used and revered to this day by rapidly
dwindling Samaritan community.[6] This author concludes in a rather unchristian way
that:

But it is not at all unlikely that the source of

Mohammed's indictment of the Jews is to be found among
the Samaritans or amongst Arab tribesmen of Samaritan
strain. If we found in Samaritan literature the opposite
belief that Ezra (or Uzair) was the son of Satan, we
would be well-nigh sure of having settled the matter.[7]

And Allah knows best!

Other Articles Related To The Historical Errors

Historical Errors Of The Qur'an: Pharaoh & Haman

The 'Samaritan' Error In The Qur'an

Al-`Aziz & Potiphar

Qur'anic Accuracy Vs. Biblical Error: The Kings & Pharaohs Of Egypt

References

[1] Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 6, Encylopedia Judaica Jerusalem, p. 1108.

[2] G. D. Newby, A History Of The Jews Of Arabia, 1988, University Of South

Carolina Press, p. 59.

[3] Ibid, p. 61.

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[4] Encyclopaedia Judaica, Ibid., p. 1108.

[5] George Sale, The Koran, IX Edition of 1923, London, p. 152.

[6] J. Walker, "Who Is 'Uzair?", The Moslem World, Volume XIX, No. 3, 1939, pp.
305-306.

[7] Ibid, p. 306.

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