Among the verses sometimes cited in discussions of prophetic death, one particular verse occupies an unusual place. The verse describes a man who passes a ruined town, questions how God could restore it and is caused to “die” for a hundred years before being “raised.” (Surah al-Baqarah, Ch.2: V.260)
For many classical commentators, this became “proof” for literal prophetic death and bodily resurrection. A closer examination of the verse, its historical context, its biblical parallel and the Quranic principles governing vision language reveals a reading altogether more coherent and altogether more dignified.
Who is the man in the verse?
The dominant classical interpretation identifies the man mentioned in the verse as “Uzair” or Ezra (as). Ibn Kathir records that Ali ibn Abi Talib, Ibn Abbas, al-Hasan, Qatadah, as-Suddi, and Sulayman ibn Buraydah all identified the subject as Ezra, transmitted through al-Tabari. (Tafsir ibn Kathir [Arabic], under 2:260, Vol. 1, 1999, p. 687)
This has become the near-universal reading. Yet Ibn Kathir himself records an alternative reading: Mujahid bin Jabr held that the verse refers to a man from the Children of Israel and that the village was Jerusalem after King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. (Ibid.)
The doubt, in other words, exists even within the mainstream’s own primary sources.
How did Ezra (as) enter the picture?
The association almost certainly entered exegesis from an entirely separate context. Surah al-Taubah verse 31 records that some Jews called Ezra (as) the son of God, which is addressed directly in a hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, in which Jews on the Day of Resurrection are questioned about their worship. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Tafsir, Hadith 4581)
This hadith concerns a theological claim made by some Jews. It has no connection to the ruined town mentioned in Surah al-Baqarah. Yet Ezra’s (as) prominence in Islamic thought as a figure associated with high renown, to the point of blasphemy, among the Israelites appears to have drawn the two together. The association was solidified through al-Tabari’s chains and popularised by Ibn Kathir, developing over centuries into what became the default reading.
The case for Ezekiel (as)
The historically grounded identification is Prophet Ezekiel (as). He was among the Israelite captives deported to Babylon following Nebuchadnezzar’s campaigns against Judah. Ancient Babylonian practice held that conquered peoples be marched past the ruins of their own cities. Ezekiel (as), among those captives, stood before the wreckage of Jerusalem, besieged first in 597 BC and razed to the ground in 586 BC and in his grief put to God the question that highlighted his prophetic mission: when would this city live again? (The Holy Quran with English Translation and Commentary, Vol. 4, p. 2110; Bickerman, EJ Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Leiden: Brill, 2007, p. 961)
His prayer was answered not in words, but in a vision. Jerusalem was rebuilt approximately a century after its destruction, and the children of Israel returned to inhabit it. (The Holy Quran with English Translation and Commentary, Vol. 1, pp. 407-408) The hundred years of the verse map with striking precision onto the historical gap between the destruction of Jerusalem and the restoration of its people.
The biblical account confirms the visionary nature of this experience. In Ezekiel 37, the prophet sees a valley of dry bones. God asks him whether these bones can live. The bones represent, in the prophet’s own words, the house of Israel: “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” (Ezekiel 37:11-12)
The resurrection in the vision is not that of Ezekiel (as) himself, it is the collective revival of Bani Israel from captivity and spiritual death. Western biblical scholarship independently confirms this reading. Brevard Childs, in his authoritative introduction to the Old Testament, characterises Ezekiel’s prophetic speech as one that “abounds in allegory, symbolic acts, and visions” and notes that Ezekiel (as) “couched his message in a language which proclaimed a message by way of analogy”, identifying Ezekiel 37 specifically as a depiction of Israel’s national restoration. (Brevard S Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, Fortress Press, 1979, pp. 358, 363, 367)
The Quranic principle at stake
Hazrat Musleh-e-Maud (ra) elaborates that the clause “then Allah caused him to die for a hundred years” does not mean that Ezekiel (as) was actually made to die and then raised again. It was a vision, and crucially, the vision of Ezekiel 37. The Quran, Huzoor (ra) notes, sometimes presents scenes witnessed in a vision as though they had literally occurred, without stating that they were seen in a dream or vision. The established precedent within the Quran itself is the vision of Yusuf (as), which the Quran narrates as direct speech with no clause announcing it as a dream and that is accepted as such even by the mainstream. (Surah Yusuf, Ch.12: V.5; The Holy Quran with English Translation and Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 407)
In the vision, Ezekiel (as) saw that he had died, remained dead for a hundred years and then came back to life. As he was the representative of his people, his death in the vision signified the death of the Israelites. God was informing him through this vision that Bani Israel would remain in their state of captivity and lifelessness for a hundred years, after which a new life would be given to them and they would return to inhabit their sacred city.
Why the literal reading fails
Beyond the historical and literary evidence, a superficial reading fails on its own theological terms. Huzoor (ra) puts it plainly: a literal death-and-resurrection of the prophet would have been no answer to his prayer, which did not pertain to the death and resurrection of any individual but to that of a town lying in ruins.. God does not kill and resurrect a prophet as an arbitrary demonstration. The “sign” declared in the verse is the national resurrection of a people, the restoration of Jerusalem and the vindication of a prophet’s grief.
This principle carries implications beyond this verse. Wherever death language appears in the Quran in relation to a prophet, the same hermeneutical care is required. A verse should not be read in isolation from the prayer that preceded it, the people it was addressed to, or the God whose dignity and purpose it reflects.
Hazrat Musleh-e-Maud’s (ra) reading of this verse, grounded in Ezekiel’s (as) historical situation, the imagery of Ezekiel 37, the Quran’s own concept of vision language and corroborated independently by Western biblical scholarship, is not an innovation. It is a recovery of what the verse, read carefully and in full, has always said.