Stories Of The Prophets

Ishaaq Ibn Bishr reported, on the authority of Ibn'
Abbas and others, that Ezra was a saint and a wise man. He went out one
day to his own farm, as was his custom. About noon he came to a
deserted, ruined place and felt the heat. He entered the ruined town
and dismounted his donkey, taking figs and grapes in his basket. He
went under the shade of the khaiba tree and ate his food. Then he got
up to look at what remained of the ruins. The people had long been
lost, and he saw bones.

"Oh! How will Allah ever bring it to life after its
death?" (Ch 2:259
Quran)

He said this not out of doubt but out of curiosity.
Allah sent the Angel of Death to take his life. He remained dead for
one hundred years.

After one hundred years had passed and there had been
changes in
Israelite affairs, Allah sent an angel upon Ezra to revive his heart
and his eyes in order for him to feel and see how Allah revives the
dead. The angel said: "For how long did you sleep?" He said: "A day or
part of a day." He said this because he knew he had slept early in the
afternoon and woke up late in the afternoon. The angel said: "You
remained asleep for one hundred years." He ate and drank the food which
he had
prepared before he was overtaken by that long sleep. Then the angel
revived his donkey.

Almighty Allah said:

"And look at your donkey!
Thus We have made of you a sign for the people. Look at the bones, how
We bring them together and clothe them with flesh." When this was
clearly shown to him he said: "I know now that Allah is able to do all
things." (Ch 2:259)

Ezra Returns Home

He rode on his donkey and entered his native place, but
the people did not recognize him, nor did his household, except the
maid, now an old woman. He asked her: "Is this the house of Ezra?" She
said: "Yes, but the people have long forgotten Ezra." He said: "I am
Ezra, Allah had taken my life for a one hundred years and has now
returned it
to me." She said: "Ezra used to be answered when he prayed to Allah.
Pray to cure me of blindness if you are Ezra." He prayed for her and
massaged her eyes and took her by the hand. "Get up by the power of
Allah," he said. The crippled woman stood up and walked; she opened her
eyes and saw; her blindness was gone. She said: "I bear witness that
you are Ezra."

Ezra Finds and Copies
the Torah

She rushed to the assembly of the Israelites. Ezra's
son was one hundred eighteen years old, and his children 's children
now were lords of
the assembly. She called out to them saying: "This is Ezra come to
you." They accused her of lying. She said: "I am your old maid. He has
just prayed to Allah for me, and here I am whole again, walking and
seeing." The people stood up and looked at him. His son said: "My
father had a mark between his shoulders, a black mole," and they
discovered it. They said: "None among us memorized the Torah since
Nabuchadnezzar burned it, except Ezra; and there was only one copy of
the Torah, which was hidden by Sarukha. He buried it in the days of
Nabuchadnezzar in a place none but Ezra knows." Ezra led the people to
the hidden place and took out that copy of the Torah. Its leaves had
rotted, and the book itself crumpled.

Ezra sat under the shade of a tree surrounded by the
children of Israel and copied out the Torah for them from that script.
Henceforth, the Jews said that Ezra is the son of Allah, for two
evidences which came down from Heaven and for his copying the torah and
for his fighting the cause of the Israelites.He had been copying the
Torah for Ezekial in the land
of darkness in the hermitage of Ezekiel. The village which was in ruins
is said to be Sayrabadh.

Ibn Abbas commanded: "So it is as Allah said:

"We
have made of you a sign for the people." (Ch 2:259)

That is, for
the Israelites, in that he was sitting among his children, the old men,
and he a youth. He died as a forty year old, and Allah resurrected him
at the same age on the day of his death."