Nabi Idris (AS)

The Twice-Mentioned Prophet

Nabi Idris (AS) appears in the Quran in only two places, but each mention is marked by singular honor:

“And mention in the Book Idris — indeed, he was a man of truth and a prophet. And We raised him to a high station.” (19:56-57)

“And Ismail and Idris and Dhu al-Kifl — all were of the patient.” (21:85-86)

From these brief but weighted mentions, the tradition has built an understanding of Idris as one of the greatest of the early prophets — a figure of unique elevation, both literal and spiritual.

What the Quran Says

Siddiq — Man of Truth

The title siddiq (truthful, one who deeply verifies truth) appears in the Quran for only a few figures: Maryam (66:12), Yusuf (12:46), Ibrahim (19:41), and Idris (19:56). It is not a generic description of goodness but a specific quality: the one whose inner life and outer life are perfectly aligned, whose testimony about divine truth is grounded in direct experience.

Nabi — Prophet

The Quran confirms Idris’s prophethood explicitly. He received divine revelation and was sent to a people — though the Quran does not narrate the details of his mission or the response of his people. His prophetic status is stated, not illustrated through narrative.

Makan ‘Aliyyan — A High Station

“And We raised him to a high station” — this phrase, rafa’nahu makan ‘aliyyan, is one of the Quran’s most mysterious. The word rafa’a (raised) in the Quran sometimes refers to spiritual elevation in status and station. The same root is used for Isa AS: “But Allah raised him to Himself” (4:158). The phrase makan ‘aliyyan (a high station, literally “a high place”) is used only for Idris in this form.

The tradition has interpreted this in two ways:

Spiritual elevation: Allah elevated Idris’s station and rank to a level comparable to the angels — perhaps indicating that he attained a degree of divine nearness while alive that surpassed ordinary prophetic status
Physical elevation: Some traditions describe Idris as having been taken up alive — similar to the traditions about Isa and about Khidr — to the heavens, bypassing ordinary death. The Prophet (SAW) is said to have encountered Idris in the fourth heaven during the Isra’ wa Mi’raj.

The Isra’ account in Hadith: when the Prophet (SAW) ascended through the heavens on the night journey, he passed through successive levels and encountered prophets: Adam in the first heaven, Yahya and Isa in the second, Yusuf in the third, Idris in the fourth, Harun in the fifth, Musa in the sixth, and Ibrahim in the seventh. Each greeted him with “Marhaban bi al-nabi al-salih” (Welcome, O righteous prophet). Idris’s placement in the fourth heaven is itself significant in the cosmological map.

Idris and Enoch — The Scriptural Connection

The traditional Islamic scholarship has identified Idris with the biblical figure of Enoch — the seventh patriarch in the line of Adam who “walked with God and was no more, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). This identification is not stated in the Quran but has been widely accepted in Islamic tradition.

Enoch/Idris is described in the tradition as:

The first person to use a pen (qalam) for writing
Knowledgeable in the sciences of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine
The prophet of wisdom who taught the arts of civilization to humanity

In one hadith tradition, Idris said: “Blessed is the one who does deeds for the sake of Allah and does not make them for the sake of creation.” The emphasis on pure divine intention — the same quality that defines siddiq — is consistent with his Quranic title.

Idris and the Sciences

The Islamic civilization developed a rich tradition of identifying prophets with specific sciences and civilizational gifts. Idris in this tradition became associated with:

Writing and letters: the gift of the qalam (pen/writing instrument) as a divine grace
Astronomy: knowledge of the heavens, mapping of celestial bodies
Mathematics: the science of number and proportion
Tailoring: the tradition says Idris was the first to sew clothes — from animal skins before his time, to woven and sewn fabric

The Ismaili tradition in particular developed a rich connection between prophetic knowledge and the sciences of the heavens. The Ikhwan al-Safa’ (Brethren of Purity), whose encyclopedic philosophical-scientific writings profoundly influenced Fatimid thought, worked in the tradition of integrating divine revelation with the natural sciences — and Idris/Enoch stood as the patron figure of this integration.

See also: Fatimid Dawat, Majalis Al Hikmah

Idris in the Prophetic Chain

In the Ismaili prophetic cycle, Idris is placed in the period between Adam (the first Natiq) and Nuh (the second Natiq). He represents the transmission of the primordial ‘ilm — the knowledge of the divine names that was given to Adam — through the period before the next major prophetic covenant.

The tradition’s account of Idris as the first to use writing is theologically significant: writing is the instrument that preserves knowledge across time, making the transmission of ‘ilm possible beyond oral transmission. Idris’s gift of writing to humanity is the gift that makes the preservation of prophetic knowledge through the satr periods possible — when the Natiq is absent, the written text preserves what was transmitted.

The association of Idris with the heavens (fourth heaven, astronomical knowledge) positions him as the prophet who most clearly embodied the principle that divine ‘ilm is not separate from the knowledge of creation — that understanding the structure of the cosmos is understanding the structure of divine wisdom. This is precisely the Ismaili teaching that the zahir of the universe and the batin of the revelation are corresponding maps of the same divine reality.

The Night Journey Encounter — Idris in the Fourth Heaven

In the traditional account of the Isra’ (Night Journey), when the Prophet (SAW) ascended through the levels of heaven with Jibrail, he met Idris in the fourth heaven and was told: “This is Idris — send salam to him.” The Prophet greeted him; Idris responded: “Welcome, O righteous brother and righteous prophet.”

The placement in the fourth heaven is cosmologically significant in Islamic angelology and in Ismaili cosmology: the heavens correspond to levels of the cosmic hierarchy. The fourth heaven’s association with the sun (in Ptolemaic cosmology that the medieval Islamic scholars used) connects Idris/Enoch’s position with the solar light — the central illuminating principle of the visible cosmos.

In the Ismaili mapping of the cosmic hierarchy, the levels of the heavens correspond to the levels of the divine intellect as it descends into creation. Idris’s position in the fourth heaven locates him at a specific level of this hierarchy — in the intermediate position, neither at the highest (Ibrahim, seventh) nor the lowest (Adam, first), but at the central illuminating level.

Ta’wil of Nabi Idris (AS)

The zahir of Idris is the prophet raised to a high station — the man of truth elevated to a place that others cannot easily reach.

The batin of Idris is the principle that divine ‘ilm, when fully received and genuinely embodied, elevates the soul beyond its original station. The ruf’a (elevation) of Idris is the paradigm of what the Imam’s ‘ilm does to the sincere mumin: it doesn’t simply inform them; it transforms their station, elevating them in the divine hierarchy toward the divine closeness that Idris represents.

The gift of writing that tradition attributes to Idris is the ta’wil of the ‘ilm that can be transmitted across time: the batin encoding itself in forms that outlast individual lives, that can be received by those who come later, that allows the river of prophetic knowledge to flow even through the deserts of the satr periods. The mumin who studies the texts of the Dawat tradition is receiving the gift of Idris — the written transmission of what was spoken by the prophets and preserved through their legatees.

“Raised to a high station” — the destination of the soul that walks with truth.

Nabi Idris (AS) — The Prophet Raised to a High Station