1. Idrīs “is” Enoch
2. In a recent study P. S. Alexander writes: “Now it seems abundantly clear that although the identification of Idrīs with Enoch is standard in the Tafsīr literature … the Qur’ダn was not, in fact, referring to Enoch. The name Idrīs is nothing like the name Enoch, and no convincing link between the two has ever been suggested”. This is however not a particularly compelling argument. If Alexander’s proffered criterion for equivalence— presumably a discernable phonetic correspondence between the names “Idrīs” and “Enoch”—should be admitted as a cogent objection, then one would be forced to discard a number of other hitherto undisputed equivalencies linking qur’anic and extra-qur’anic characters. For example, the Babylonian angels Harūt and Marūt (Q 2:102) are most certainly reflexes of the disgraced heavenly Watchers Shem昭azai and ‘Azael whose corruptive activities are extensively profiled in Jewish pseudepigraphic lore (M. Grünbaum, “Beiträge zur vergleichenden Mythologie aus der Hagada,” in idem, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sprach- und Sagenkunde (ed. F. Perles; Berlin: S. Calvary & Co., 1901), 59-75; B. Heller, “La chute des anges: Schemhazai, Ouzza et Azaël,” REJ 60 (1910): 202-12; G. Vajda, “Harūt wa-Marūt,” EI2 3:236-37. The present author is currently preparing a new comparative study of these materials). This is true despite the absence of any common elements among their respective names.

There is however one important clue already within the qur’anic verses that fosters an identification of Idrīs with Enoch; namely, their suggestive reference to the apparent supernatural removal of Enoch from human society: “We raised him (i.e., Idrīs) to a lofty place”. While it is true that some commentators (and hence Qur’an translations) interpret the phrase “lofty place” to refer to a change in status rather than of cosmic locale, most of the legendary embellishments tied to this verse understand its import to connote Idrīs’s physical ascent to heaven. One of these latter sources (Jub. 4:23) expresses Enoch’s removal from human society in these terms: “And he (i.e., Enoch) was taken up from among humankind, and we brought him into the Garden of Eden (so as) to honor and glorify (him).” This statement is intriguingly congruous with the qur’anic “We raised him to a lofty place,” even when one disregards the interesting parallel usage of the first-person plural pronoun to reference their respective angelic interlocutors. The same first-person style (i.e., the angels referenced as “we”) is found in 4Q227 (4QpsJubc ) Frag. 2; see the edition of J. C. VanderKam and J. T. Milik in Qumran Cave 4 VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1 (DJD XIII; ed. H. Attridge, et al.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 171-75 and pl. XII (PAM 43.238). Recalling that there is a persistent tradition within early eastern Christendom that situates Eden at the top of a cosmic mountain one begins to realize that there may be further “subtextual” linkages between these two texts ( See N. Séd, “Les hymnes sur le Paradis de Saint Ephrem et les traditions,” Mus 81 (1968): 459; R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 306-10; G. Widengren, Muhammad, the Apostle of God, and his Ascension (Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1955), 208-209. Note Ezek 28:12-18; Isa 14:12-15; 1 En. 18:6; 24:3-25:7; 32:3-6; Ephrem, Hymnen de Paradiso 1.4 (cited by Séd, “Les hymnes,” 474).

1. Q 2:30 and its “Biblical” Roots
2. A better candidate however may be the earlier story of Cain and Abel (Gen 4:1-16), some echoes of which also appear in the Qur’an (5:27-32). While the basic story is recounted here, the names of the feuding brothers are conspicuously absent in the qur’anic version. Later tradition supplies the assonant sobriquets Qabīl and Habīl. For illuminating presentations of the textual interfaces among the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpretations of this story, see Geiger, Judaism and Islam, 80-82; Speyer, Erzählung, 84-88; N. A. Stillman, “The Story of Cain and Abel in the Qur’an and the Muslim Commentators: Some Observations,” JSS 19 (1974): 231-39; H. Busse, “Cain and Abel,” EncQur 1:270-72.