Idris: Is the Quran's Prophet the Same as Enoch?
A prophet the Quran says was raised "to high station," whom tradition identifies with Enoch and later with Hermes.
Idris is a prophet named twice in the Quran, who was "raised to high station." Muslim tradition almost unanimously identified him with the biblical Enoch, and later with Hermes Trismegistus.
Idris is named twice in the Quran. Surah 19 says: "And make mention in the Scripture of Idris. Lo! he was a saint, a prophet; And We raised him to high station." Surah 21:85 lists him among the patient and steadfast. That is all the Quran says. The phrase about being raised up is what made him famous, because it sounds like the fate of Enoch in Genesis 5:24: "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."
Muslim tradition almost unanimously identified Idris with Enoch, placing him in the line from Adam to Noah. Later writers credited him with being the first to write with a pen, to sew clothing, and to study the stars. In the hadith of the Night Journey, Muhammad meets Idris in the fourth heaven, which many commentators took as the "high station" of the Quran.
Medieval Arabic authors went further and identified Idris with Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Egyptian sage behind the Hermetic writings. Some spoke of three Hermeses, the first of whom lived before the Flood, built the pyramids to preserve knowledge, and was Idris himself. This is how a single figure came to connect Genesis, the Book of Enoch, Egyptian wisdom, and alchemy.
The meaning of the name is uncertain. Proposals include an Arabic root for study, darasa, or a reshaping of a Greek or Hebrew name, and none is settled. For readers of the site, Idris is the thread that ties the man who was taken up into the sky to the tradition of a primeval sage who wrote down secret knowledge before the Flood.
Medieval Arabic writers said Idris, as the first Hermes, carved the sciences onto temple walls in Egypt so they would survive the Flood.
The Quran gives almost no biography; the identification with Enoch and Hermes comes from later tradition, and scholars note it may not reflect the Quran's original intent.
