“ʿUzayr has been gone from us for a hundred years, and we have heard nothing of him.”

He replied, “I am ʿUzayr.”

She protested, “But ʿUzayr was a man whose supplication was invariably answered; he would pray for the sick and the afflicted, and Allah would grant them health and cure. So ask Allah to restore my sight so that I may see you. If you are truly ʿUzayr, I shall recognize you.”

He prayed to his Lord, passed his hand over her eyes, and they were healed. Taking her by the hand, he said, “Rise, by Allah’s leave.” Allah loosened her legs, and she stood up fully sound, as though she had just been freed from her bonds.

She looked at him and declared, “I testify that you are ʿUzayr.” She hurried to the quarter of the Children of Israel, where they sat in their assemblies. Among them was ʿUzayr’s own son, now a venerable elder of one hundred and eighteen, and with him were grandsons of ʿUzayr, themselves aged men.

She called out, “ʿUzayr has come back to you!” They accused her of lying.

She said, “I am So-and-so, your servant-woman. He prayed to his Lord on my behalf, and He restored my sight and freed my legs. He claims that Allah caused him to die for a hundred years and then revived him.”

The people rose and went to him, examining him closely. His son said, “My father had a black mole between his shoulders.” He uncovered his shoulders, and there it was—he was indeed ʿUzayr.

The Children of Israel said, “We have been told that no one among us memorised the Torah except ʿUzayr. Nebuchadnezzar burned the Torah, and nothing of it survived save what people retained by heart. Write it down for us.” ʿUzayr’s father, Sarūkhā, had buried the Torah during Nebuchadnezzar’s time in a spot known only to ʿUzayr. He led them to that place, dug it up, and brought out the Torah; its pages were decayed and its script effaced.

He sat in the shade of a tree while the Children of Israel gathered around him, and he restored the Torah for them. Two shafts of light descended from the sky and entered his breast; he remembered the Torah and renewed it for the Children of Israel.

From that time the Jews said, “ʿUzayr is the son of God,” because of the two heavenly lights, his renewal of the Torah, and his leadership over the Children of Israel. He rewrote the Torah for them in the land of al-Sawād, at Dayr Ḥizqīl.

The village in which he died is called Sāyirābādh.

Ibn ʿAbbās said: it happened exactly as Allah, Exalted is He, has said, “and that We might make you a sign for the people” (Q 2:259)—meaning a sign for the Children of Israel. He would sit among his sons while they were grey-haired elders and he was still a youth, for he had died at the age of forty and Allah resurrected him in the very form he had on the day he died. Ibn ʿAbbās also said—and al-Ḥasan agreed—that his revival occurred after the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī versified Ibn ʿAbbās’ description:

A man whose hair stayed black, while greyed before him his own son,
and earlier still his grandson—older than he had grown.
He sees his son an old man, hobbling on a cane,
while his own beard is jet-black and his head is fair of mane.
His son no longer has the strength that once his limbs supplied;
he rises like a child who, when he walks, will stumble as he strides.
That son is counted by the folk as ninety years and twenty—
no longer able to run or strut with youthful vanity.