He was also asked—may Allah have mercy on him—about al-Khidr and Elijah: “Have their lives been prolonged? Explain this to us, may Allah Most High have mercy on you.”
He replied:
They are not among the living, nor have their lives been prolonged (*).
Ibrāhīm al-Harbī asked Ahmad ibn Hanbal about the prolonged lives of al-Khidr and Elijah, and the claim that they remain alive, see, and have reports transmitted from them. Imam Ahmad said: “Whoever refers to an absent person has not acted fairly; only a devil put this idea forward.”
Al-Bukhārī was asked about al-Khidr and Elijah: “Are they among the living?” He replied: “How could that be, when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: ‘At the end of a hundred years, none of those now on the face of the earth will remain’?”
Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī said: His saying, exalted is He:
“We did not grant immortality to any human before you.”
And they are not among the living. Allah knows best.
(*) Shaykh Nāsir ibn Hamad al-Fahd said (p. 34):
The quotation from Ibn al-Jawzī at the end of this fatwa is defective, as the context indicates—and Allah knows best. It appears that some text has been omitted here.
Ibn al-Jawzī, may Allah have mercy on him, wrote a book on this subject entitled Ujālat al-Muntazir fī Sharh Hāl al-Khidr (A Brief Explanation of al-Khidr’s State for the Awaiting Reader). Ibn Kathīr, may Allah have mercy on him, mentioned it in his history (2:265), saying:
“As for those who held that he had died, they include al-Bukhārī, Ibrāhīm al-Harbī, Abū al-Husayn ibn al-Munādī, and Shaykh Abū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī, who defended this position and wrote a book entitled Ujālat al-Muntazir fī Sharh Hāl al-Khidr. Many arguments may be advanced in support of their position, including Allah Most High’s statement: ‘We did not grant immortality to any human before you.’ Thus, if al-Khidr is human, he necessarily falls within this general statement. The presumption is that no exception exists until one is established. No evidence establishing an exception has been cited from an authority protected from error whose report must be accepted.”
Thus, perhaps Ibn al-Jawzī’s concluding comments on the verse, or something similar, are what has been omitted from the fatwa. Allah Most High knows best.