Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/173

 EZEA. . 155

lie comes before us in Scripture, and the Jews believed this of him ; so the probability becomes great that Muhammad, on the one hand, intentionally exaggerated, and, on the other hand, eagerly caught up the hasty and mocking utterance of some individual to prove this point against the Jews.

The Arabian commentators according to Maraccius l refer another passage in the Quran 2 to Ezra, namely, the one where it is related of some person that he passed by a ruined city and doubted if it could ever be restored. Grod let him die for one hundred years, then revived him and imparted to him the assurance that one hundred years had gone by, while he believed that but one day had passed.

The proof was that his food and drink had perished and his ass was mouldering away. Then behold! Grod put together the bones of the animal and clothed them with flesh, so that the man acknowledged : " God is mighty over all." The fable is derived, as Maraccius rightly observes, from the ride round the ruined city of Jerusalem made by Nehemiah, 3 who is often confused with Ezra.

Two other Biblical characters are merely mentioned: Elisha 4 in two passages, 5 and each time strangely enough immediately after Ishmael ; and Dhu'1-Kifl, 6 who according to his name which means the nourisher, and from the fact related of him that he nourished a hundred Israelites in a cave, must be Obadiah. 7 Perhaps however he may be Ezekiel; who according to Niebuhr 8 is called Kephil by tho Arabs. 9

1 Prod. iv. 85, 2 Sura II, 261.

3 Nehemiah, ii. 12 ff. * ^T\

5 Suras VI. 86, XXXVIII. 48. 6 Suras XXI. 85, XXXVIII, 48.

7 1 Kings, xviii. 4. 8 Reisebeschreibung II. 265.

9 According to Khondemir (D'Herbelofc Bibl. Orient, under Elisha ben Akhthob) Dhu'1-Kifl waa a follower of Elisha, but Obadiah was contem- porary with Elijah,