Some prophets get a whole surah. Idris, peace be upon him, the man the English-speaking world knows as Enoch, gets two verses. Two. And yet from those two verses, and one authentic word of the Prophet ﷺ, a whole portrait emerges: a truthful man, a patient man, a prophet Allah lifted to a high place and kept there.
This is day six of twenty-nine, still in the early generations of Adam's children, and it is a lesson in discipline as much as in story. Because almost everything the old books say about Idris sits outside the Qur'an, and Mufti Menk uses this short life to teach you exactly how a Muslim holds a story he cannot fully verify: not believed, not rejected, and never hardened into fact.
A prophet between Adam and Nuh
Yesterday was Shith, the son of Adam who carried the trust forward. Tonight the line reaches Idris, peace be upon him. Where does he fit? The majority of the historians, Mufti Menk relays, place him as a great-grandson of Adam several times over, the seventh generation of his progeny. A smaller view puts him much later, among the Children of Israel, the people of Musa; but the weight of the scholars sits with the earlier placement, and that is where we stand.
And right here, at the very start, Mufti Menk stops the story to hand you a tool, because you are going to need it for the next several days. How do we even know any of this? Islamic history splits in two. Everything from the time of the Prophet ﷺ onward we accept only with a chain, an isnad: who said it, who they heard it from, all the way back to the source, and if a single link is a known liar, the whole report is dropped, even if it sounds pious. But for what came before him ﷺ, there is a second body of material, and it has its own rule entirely.
Believed, rejected, or simply left alone
The stories the People of the Book carry, what the Torah and the Old Testament hold, are called the Israiliyyat, and Mufti Menk lays out the three grades he keeps returning to all month. Some of these reports our revelation came and rejected: the slander that Lut, peace be upon him, was himself a sinful man, for instance, we throw out, because the Qur'an tells us he was the purest of his people. Some our revelation confirms, like Hawwa being created from Adam, which Allah states in Surah al-A'raf and Surah an-Nisa, and those we take. And then there is the great bulk, which Islam neither confirms nor denies.
That third pile is the one that needs an adult. We do not believe it and we do not call it a lie. We may listen, understand it, even draw a lesson from it, but we do not need it to be Muslims, and after we tell it we say the words Mufti Menk says after every such story: Allahu a'lam, Allah knows best. Keep that phrase in your hand, because nearly everything that follows about the look and the death of Idris lives in exactly that pile.
What the books say, gently held
From the Israiliyyat, and only from there, comes the human detail. They say Idris was born when Adam was eight hundred and forty years old. They say he was tall and strikingly good-looking, calm in his manner, with a full beard; that he spoke clearly and without agitation, lowered his gaze and watched the ground as he walked, a collected man who pondered and reflected, and advised people with so much goodness that they were drawn to him.
It is a beautiful portrait, and Mufti Menk tells it warmly, but he tells it with the label still attached: this is a narration of the People of the Book, and over it we say Allahu a'lam. Notice what he does not do. He does not turn 'they say he was tall' into 'he was tall', and he does not reach for the famous extra legends that float around this prophet and pin them on as fact. The discipline is the point. A believer can enjoy a story without swallowing it whole.
The two verses that are certain
وَٱذْكُرْ فِى ٱلْكِتَٰبِ إِدْرِيسَ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ صِدِّيقًا نَّبِيًّا
“And mention in the Book, Idrees. Indeed, he was a man of truth and a prophet.”
Surah Maryam 19:56 Read 19:56 with tafsir
وَرَفَعْنَٰهُ مَكَانًا عَلِيًّا
“And We raised him to a high station.”
Surah Maryam 19:57 Read 19:57 with tafsir
Step out of the Israiliyyat and onto solid ground, and Idris appears in only two places in the whole Qur'an. The first is in Surah Maryam, and it settles two things beyond any doubt. He was a siddiq, a man whose whole being was truth, and he was a nabi, a prophet. Whatever else we cannot verify, this much Allah Himself has told us.
And then the line that gives the day its name: We raised him to a high place. Mufti Menk pauses on what that elevation means. Ask anyone what it is to be raised high, and they will reach for the spiritual: a station near Allah. And that is the heart of it, that Allah granted Idris prophethood, praised him, and set his name in the Qur'an forever, which is height of the truest kind. But some of the mufassirin, he notes, read it more literally still, that Allah lifted him up physically, and there is a reason they say that, which the next verses and a hadith are about to make plain.
Patient, righteous, and brought into mercy
وَإِسْمَٰعِيلَ وَإِدْرِيسَ وَذَا ٱلْكِفْلِ ۖ كُلٌّ مِّنَ ٱلصَّٰبِرِينَ
“And [mention] Ishmael and Idrees and Dhul-Kifl; all were of the patient.”
Surah al-Anbiya 21:85 Read 21:85 with tafsir
وَأَدْخَلْنَٰهُمْ فِى رَحْمَتِنَآ ۖ إِنَّهُم مِّنَ ٱلصَّٰلِحِينَ
“And We admitted them into Our mercy. Indeed, they were of the righteous.”
Surah al-Anbiya 21:86 Read 21:86 with tafsir
The second place is in Surah al-Anbiya, where Allah names three prophets in a single breath: Ismail, Idris, and Dhul-Kifl, peace be upon them all. And He tells you the one quality that binds them: every one of them was of the patient. So to truthful and prophet, add a third certainty about Idris, patience, the quality that carries a believer through the long stretches when nothing is moving.
Then Allah says of the three of them that He admitted them into His mercy, that they were among the righteous, the salihin. Stand the verified facts side by side and the portrait is complete without a single borrowed legend: a man of truth, a prophet, raised high, patient, righteous, gathered into the mercy of his Lord. The Qur'an gave Idris two short passages, and they were enough.
The meeting in the fourth heaven
There is one more report, and Mufti Menk saves it for last because of where it lands. The books of tafsir relay a beautiful Israiliyyat: that Allah told Idris his good deeds would be multiplied, and that as his death drew near he asked an angel he was close to to carry him up so he could gather still more reward, that he was lifted through the heavens, and that the angel of death, under Allah's command, took his soul at the fourth heaven. Over all of that, as ever, we say Allahu a'lam.
But it does not end there, and this is the moment the whole day has been climbing toward. What the old books only suggest, an authentic hadith confirms. In Sahih al-Bukhari it is established that on the night the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was taken up through the heavens on the Mi'raj, he met Idris, peace be upon him, in the fourth heaven. So the soul of Idris really is up there, raised, and centuries later the final Prophet ﷺ passed through that same heaven and found him. The verse said raised to a high place; the Night Journey showed the Prophet ﷺ exactly how high. This is why some of the mufassirin took the elevation literally, and it is the surest thing we know about how this prophet's story ends.
Why a two-verse prophet matters to you
It would be easy to skip a prophet the Qur'an names only twice. Do not. Idris is the clean test case for something you will carry for the rest of this series and the rest of your life as a believer: the difference between what Allah has guaranteed and what people have merely passed down. Three things are certain, because Allah said them: Idris was truthful, he was patient, he was raised high and brought into mercy. Everything else, however lovely, wears the label Allahu a'lam.
And there is a quiet comfort folded into his name. The same elevation Allah gave Idris, He has placed within reach of anyone truthful and patient enough to climb toward it. You will never be a prophet, the line of prophethood closed with the one ﷺ who met Idris in the heavens. But truthfulness, patience, and a heart that ponders and advises with goodness are doors that are still open. Walk through them, and you are walking the very road that raised Idris to a high place.