His father’s span had been a mere forty years—already gone by—
while his grandson had lived to ninety, a lesson for every eye.
(1)
Reason itself can scarcely take this in—if you perceive it;
and if you cannot, then your ignorance may plead your excuse.
(2)
Section
The well-known view is that ʿUzayr was a prophet from among the prophets of the Children of Israel, living in the period between David and Solomon and, later on, between Zechariah and John. When no one remained among the Israelites who still preserved the Torah, Allah inspired ʿUzayr to commit it entirely to memory and to recite it anew for them. Wahb ibn Munabbih relates: “Allah ordered an angel to descend with a scoop of light, which he cast into ʿUzayr, whereupon ʿUzayr reproduced the Torah letter by letter until he completed it.”(3)
Ibn ʿAsākir(4) reports that Ibn ʿAbbās asked ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām about Allah’s words, “The Jews say, ‘ʿUzayr is the son of God’” (Q 9:30): why did they make such a claim? Ibn Salām explained that ʿUzayr had written out the Torah for the Children of Israel from memory, and the Israelites said, “Moses could not bring us the Torah except in a written form, whereas ʿUzayr has brought it without any written copy.” Some factions among them then reviled him and declared, “ʿUzayr is the son of God.”
For this reason many scholars state that the uninterrupted transmission of the Torah ceased in the time of ʿUzayr—a view that makes considerable sense if ʿUzayr was not a prophet, as maintained by ʿAtāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in the report transmitted by Isḥāq ibn Bishr from Muqātil ibn Sulaymān from ʿAtāʾ. ʿUthmān ibn ʿAtāʾ al-Khurāsānī, narrating from his father, and Muqātil from ʿAtāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, said: “Nine noteworthy events occurred during the period of prophetic silence (al-fatra): Nebuchadnezzar, the garden of Ṣanʿāʾ, the garden of Sabaʾ, the Companions of the Trench, Amra Ḥāṣūrā, the Companions of the Cave, the Companions of the Elephant, the city of Antioch, and the affair of Tubbaʿ.”
Isḥāq ibn Bishr further related, on the authority of Saʿīd, from Qatādah, from al-Ḥasan: “The story of ʿUzayr and of Nebuchadnezzar both took place during the fatra.”
It is authentically established that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “The people who have the greatest claim to Jesus son of Mary are I; there is no prophet between him and me.”(5)
Wahb ibn Munabbih also said: “He lived in the interval between Solomon and Jesus (peace be upon them).”