From a Christian scholarly perspective, the Quranic depiction of Ezekiel—traditionally identified with the ambiguous title Dhul-Kifl ("Possessor of the Double Portion") and whose prophecies are referenced in a fragmented, desensitized form in Surah 2:243—is a striking example of late-date narrative erosion. While the biblical Ezekiel is a towering prophetic priest who witnesses the terrifying majesty of Yahweh's chariot-throne and acts out complex typological signs of judgment during the Babylonian exile, the Quran reduces his legacy. It strips away his extensive priestly theology, leaving behind an anonymous name in a list and a highly compressed echo of his Valley of Dry Bones vision to match a generic 7th-century theological agenda.
Surah 21:85-86:
And [remember] Ishmael and Idris and Dhul-Kifl; all were of the patient. And We admitted them into Our mercy. Indeed, they were of the righteous.Surah 38:48:
And remember Ishmael and Elisha and Dhul-Kifl, and all are among the outstanding.
The canonical text confirms Ezekiel’s status as a true, divinely appointed watchman over the house of Israel who was called to endure immense personal hardship and hostility.
Ezekiel 2:3:
And he said to me, 'Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.'
Surah 2:243:
Have you not considered those who left their homes in thousands, apprehensive of death, whereupon Allah said to them, 'Die,' then He revived them? Indeed Allah is gracious to mankind, but most people do not give thanks.
The text preserves a distinct historical memory of Ezekiel’s famous vision where a vast field of dry, lifeless bones is supernaturally recomposed and resurrected by a divine command.
Ezekiel 37:4-5:
Then he said to me, 'Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.'
Ezekiel is anchored in history—the son of Buzi, a Levitical priest living among the Jewish exiles by the Chebar River in Babylon during the reign of King Jehoiachin. His 48-chapter book is a complex structural monument of apocalyptic, temple, and sacrificial theology.
Ezekiel 1:3:
the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.
The Quran completely strips his name, replacing it with the ambiguous epithet Dhul-Kifl. He has no father, no location, no connection to the Babylonian exile, and no priestly identity. He is entirely severed from the redemptive history of Israel.
Ezekiel’s entire ministry opens with a terrifying vision of the divine chariot-throne—the four living creatures, wheels within wheels, and the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh, which emphasizes God's mobile presence outside of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 1:28:
Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face...
The Quran completely omits this vision. Because the Islamic worldview relies on a strict, abstract interpretation of divine transcendence (Tawhid), it rejects the concept of God manifesting His glory or throne to a human prophet in such a tangible, interactive manner.
The resurrection of the dead army in Ezekiel 37 is explicitly designated as a corporate, covenantal prophecy symbolizing the house of Israel being gathered from exile, restored to their land, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Ezekiel 37:11:
Then he said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.'
Surah 2:243 strips the corporate identity of Israel and the role of the Holy Spirit from the scene. It flattens a profound typological promise of spiritual rebirth into a random, abrupt historical event where a nameless crowd flees a plague, is struck dead by an arbitrary word, and is revived simply to serve as a legalistic lesson about the necessity of physical fighting.
The primary systematic reason for altering Ezekiel’s narrative is that his complex, highly technical temple and sacrificial architecture (especially the blueprint for the future Temple in chapters 40-48) was completely unusable for a 7th-century Arab audience.
Islam relies on a uniform prophetic template where prophets are simple moral warners who preach basic legal compliance. The complex symbolic actions of Ezekiel—such as lying on his side for 390 days to bear Israel's sin or offering specific Levitical sacrifices—were entirely excised to preserve a simplified, non-sacrificial theological landscape.
The transition of Ezekiel's identity into the cryptic "Dhul-Kifl" and the bizarre stories assigned to him in Islamic traditions do not come from a divine source, but from the oral repetition of extra-biblical Jewish folklore circulating in the pre-Islamic Near East.
The Rabbinic Source:
The specific detail in Surah 2:243 regarding the "thousands who left their homes for fear of death" directly mirrors the expansions found in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 925) and late Midrashic commentaries. The rabbis debated the exact identity of the dead bodies in Ezekiel's valley, with some claiming they were Jews from the tribe of Ephraim who prematurely tried to flee Egypt and were slaughtered.
The Linguistic Mix-up:
The title Dhul-Kifl ("Possessor of the portion or guarantee") likely reflects a loose oral adaptation or confusion with Obadiah (who sustained a "portion" of prophets with bread and water) or a late Talmudic description of Ezekiel’s double-reward for his patience in exile. Muhammad heard these loose rabbinic debates and canonized fragmented storytelling fragments into the text of the Quran.
The most explicit link to the geographic realities of the 7th-century Near East lies in the localization of Ezekiel's resting place.
The Historical Context:
Long before the rise of Islam, the traditional tomb of the prophet Ezekiel (located in modern-day Al-Kifl, Iraq) was a major pilgrimage site for Mesopotamian Jews and Christian Arab traders traveling from the Hijaz.
The Re-Branding:
The region itself became known by the descriptor Kifl. Muhammad adopted the localized title used by regional merchants, turning the historical Hebrew priest Ezekiel into an indigenous-sounding, legendary desert saint associated with an Iraqi trade-route sanctuary, thereby making him palatable to an audience familiar with regional shrine-veneration.
The Quranic narrative of Ezekiel is a clear testament to late-date, secondary textual decay. By substituting the specific, historical priestly identity of Ezekiel with the ambiguous title of Dhul-Kifl, and by converting his covenantal "Dry Bones" prophecy into a localized moral warning, the text betrays its reliance on third-hand oral reports.
The Islamic version lacks any historical or theological continuity with original revelation, operating instead as a fragmented 7th-century rewrite that completely misses the biblical point of Ezekiel—the preservation of a holy, priestly lineage that directly prepared the way for the supreme glory and spiritual resurrection accomplished through Jesus Christ.