Uzair

Uzair (Arabic: عزير, romanized: ʿUzayr) is a figure who is mentioned in the Quran, Surah at-Tawbah, verse 9:30, which states that he was "revered by the Jews as the son of God". Uzair is most often identified with the biblical Ezra. Historians have described the reference as enigmatic since such views have not been found in Jewish sources. Islamic scholars have interpreted the Quranic reference in different ways, with some claiming that it alluded to a "specific group of Jews". A priest at the Aqsa compound also named Uzair is also said to have been in some commentaries to be the person who is identified as the protagonist in the Parable of the Hamlet in Ruins in surah Baqara (2:259). Implying he found Jerusalem in ruins from the Babylonian captivity and died for a 100 years like a sleep then God made him wake up. When awaken he was asked by God how much he slept and he said "maybe a day or a part of a day" while God then said that he was like it for a hundred years. Ezra the priest is sometimes mentioned as being "raised to divine" or closely divine in some Syriac texts like Visions of Ezra as a metaphor. Which may have been the Quran's rebuttal of it. Hythem Sidky and Holger Zellentin identified Uzayr as Eliezer ben Hurcanus, one of the most prominent Rabbinic sages of the Mishnah. Additionally, Ibn Ishaq's biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad describes that some Jews of Medina believed that Uzayr was the son of God, and that the Quranic revelation relates to that belief. According to Ibn Kathir, Uzair lived between the times of Sulaiman and the time of Zakariya, father of John the Baptist Some Quranic commentators viewed Uzayr as a learned scholar who sought...