“Open and Shut Case”
Note: "Quran" in Arabic means: 'recite' in English
Ezra is ('Uzair in Arabic)
G-d (Jews do not say or type the word for Allah)
Summary of Ezra (ʿUzair)’s bold mission to recover the lost Torah after the Babylonian exile — and the extraordinary challenges he overcame in reconstructing it—based on Islamic tradition:
1. No Internet, Just Oral Tradition
According to classical Islamic sources—like Ibn Kathīr—after the destruction of Jerusalem, one copy of the Torah was supposedly hidden and others were destroyed.
Superstitions said the people had “forgotten” the Torah entirely, and elders merely retained “bits and fragments” orally. There were no scrolls, no libraries — just memory.
2. Uzair’s Tour of the Tribes
Uzair appears before the ruined temple, then embarks on a fact-finding mission across the tribes of Israel, seeking out:
- Old men who remembered
- Elders reciting whatever scraps they learned as children
- Leaders recalling faint memories of the Law
Sources describe how he invested countless years of listening, comparing different accounts to piece together authenticity—like a proto—historian without any written archive.
3. Miraculous Resurrection
Stories of old tell a dramatic story of G-d taking Uzair's life . .
- Uzair is dead for 100 years
- G-d brings him back at the same ruins—now a rebuilt Jerusalem
- He meets a blind woman - He heals her, affirming his identity
- His children are now the elders, proof of his long span of time
4. Reconstructing the Torah
With elders present, Uzair (Ezra):
- Demonstrates perfect recall from memory
- Leads a search for the hidden scroll
- Compares it—fragmentary and rotted—with his recitation, and they match word for word
- That proves the Torah he recites is the original, recreated verbatim
Result: Uzair (Ezra) transcribes a fresh scroll from memory, restoring the entire Torah for the people.
5. The Crown of a Prophet
This impressive feat—reconstructing a whole destroyed scripture from oral memory alone—amazed the Israelites so profoundly — some began to call him “son of G-d” (ReciteQuran.com/9:30).
Islam rejects making someone one with G-d (1st Commandment), but this episode illustrates the scholarly work of Uzar (Ezra), verified without a single surviving manuscript.
This Solves the “Open & Shut” Case
- No scriptures left, so only memory could reconstruct it
- He was believed to have lived through the full span, died and was brought back to verify lost time
- Direct youth-to-elder comparison showed no later influence
- Word-for-word matching with hidden remnants confirmed authenticity
- His scholarship ability outweighed any legend.
6. Linking to Old Testament Debates
Imagine the confusion when tribes bring recollections:
- Did Noah take two of each animal, or six of the clean and two of the unclean?
- Different elders recalled different genealogies, rulings, or laws
- Uzair had to be an arbiter, listening, comparing, and resolving major inconsistencies.
- Without one single text, these disputes were his boldest challenges.
He had to decide:
- Which one of their recitations aligned more with the known divine pattern? (e.g. Genesis’ emphasis on clean vs unclean)
- When elders clearly butt heads, he relied on his memory and inspiration
- His authority came from defining a standard text after evaluating conflicting oral traditions
In effect, he became a living editor, reconstructing and standardizing until the community all had to accept one Torah.
* SUMMARY *
- Uzair (Ezra) found Jerusalem in ruins—scripture believed lost
- He listened tribe by tribe, gathering differing oral versions
- Through miraculous resurrection, he verified his identity and mission
- He compared, recalled, and rewrote the Torah entirely from memory
- He resolved major inconsistencies (like Noah’s ark counts) to produce a unified scripture
- His success was so profound it left no doubt — a definitive, open-ended case
* REFLECTION *
Both scholarly and miraculous — Reconstructing lost revelations — purely from oral sources, verifying it with the only fragmentary scroll surviving — and then resolving competing tribal versions — all without a single chain of digital or printed media.
For the People of the Book (Jews and Christians), it highlights the fragility of knowledge when left in human hands. Some try to attack the Muslim claim: “Only the Qur’an is being divinely preserved in Arabic texts and memories”.
This, indeed might be the case of the Torah, if it were really:
1. accessible 2. unaltered and 3. protected by Allah.
