Allah—w. n. b. e.—has said: ‘Hast thou not considered those who left their habitations, and they were thousands, for fear of death? and Allah said unto them, Die; then he restored them to life, for Allah is gracious towards mankind, but the greater part of them do not give thanks.’* Divines and commentators are at variance whether the dead were resuscitated by the instrumentality of Yoshua’, the son of Nûn, or Ashamail, or Hazkil; the most correct opinion, however, is that it had been done by the last-named individual.
Hazkil was the third successor after his lordship the speaker [with God]. The reason of his being called ‘the son of the old woman’ is, because his father had two wives, one of whom bore him ten sons, and the other [who afterwards became] the mother of ‘the son of the old woman’ was barren.* His father was the sacrificing priest of the children of Esrâil, and one of the duties of the said official was, that as soon as he perceived the sign of the acceptance of the sacrifice, he placed a forked iron, upon the two prongs of which there were figures of two dogs, into the meat, and whatever thereof stuck to those two figures, the sacrificer was allowed to dispose of for his own use.* One day the father of Hazkil had brought to his house the meat which had in this manner fallen to his share, divided it into twelve portions, eleven of which he gave to one of his wives, and to her children, and one portion to the mother of Hazkil, whom the other wife then insulted, saying: ‘The Lord Most High has, by means of my children, shown to me His preference over thee.’ These words distressed the [future] mother of Hazkil, who engaged in prayers from sunset till the next morning, and implored the Bestower of gifts to vouchsafe to present her with a pious son, in whose society she might while away the melancholy of solitude. She also besought the Granter of requests to give her a sign that her prayers had been responded to. When the sun rose, the old woman, whose courses had ceased for some time, again felt them coming upon her; the Omnipotent Inscrutable One presented her with the freshness and bloom of youth; her husband loved her more, and she gave birth to Hazkil, from whose forehead the signs of piety, intelligence, and felicity began to radiate, whereat the people were much astonished, and surnamed him the ‘son of the old woman.’ When Hazkil [had grown up and] became a prophet, he always admonished the children of Esrâil to follow the religion of Mûsa, to keep the Mosaic Law and the commandments of God, warning the people not to disobey them. After some time the Most High sent him on a mission to Ailia, whilst others allege that he was commanded to go to a town of the name of Dâvur, the inhabitants of which encouraged each other to wage a religious war [for the purpose of aiding Hazkil]; but as they were dilatory and procrastinating, the Lord of Majesty afflicted them with pestilence, on account of which they fled from the city; they had, however, run not more than one mile when they heard fearful shouts, in consequence of which all of them hastened to the next world. Ebn A’bbâs relates that they were four thousand in number, but Wuhub Bin Muniah asserts that they amounted to eighty thousand. It is also narrated by Ebn A’bbâs that after seven days had elapsed since the death of those people their corpses burst and stank. On that occasion Hazkil happened to have finished his devotions, and was passing that way, but feeling commiseration in his heart, he said: ‘O Lord, Thou hast destroyed these people!’ He then heard the answer: ‘They fled from the plague, therefore I displayed My power to them.’ Hazkil prayed to the Lord to resuscitate those men to life, and the request was granted; those people, however, not only themselves retained a cadaverous smell, but also their children and descendants were affected therewith. Wuhub states that their flesh had fallen to pieces, and their bones were also rotten when they were again restored to life by the prayers of Hazkil; the knowledge is, however, with Allah.*
When the corpses were resuscitated they exclaimed: ‘Praise be to Thee, O Lord! There is no God but Thou!’ They arose from that place, returned to their country, and acted during the remainder of their lives according to the religion of Mûsa, until their predestined fate overtook them, and they were compelled by death to walk into the pleasant mansion of eternity. After Hazkil had for a long time remained among the children of those people who were sometimes obedient and at others rebellious towards him, his noble mind was so grieved that he departed from their country to the land of Babel, whence he was removed to the everlasting abode:
Distich: A deceitful mansion must be this,
Now in sorrow, now in bliss.
It is said that his lordship was interred between Hillah and Kufah, where the Jews greatly venerate his tomb. His personal description, duration of his mission, and of his life not being known, the musk-dripping reed must abstain from mentioning them.