Prophet Ayyub عَلَيْهِ ٱلسَّلَامُ (Job)

Ayyub (Arabic: أيوب), the Job of the Hebrew Bible, is one of the prophets named in the Qur'an, and in Islamic tradition he is the standing example of patience under affliction. He is named in four passages: twice in lists of the prophets to whom God sent revelation and guidance, and twice in accounts of his trial and its ending. The second pair are short. As Qasasul Ambiyaa observes, the Qur'an tells his story in very concise terms, and yet in that shortened form it sets out the major points, and does so in a manner the far longer narrative of the Book of Job does not.

The brevity is the most important thing about the Qur'anic account, and it governs how this article is written. The Qur'an names no disease, describes no symptom, and gives no duration. It records that Ayyub lost his wealth, his family and his health; that he turned to his Lord in a supplication of great restraint; that God answered him, healed him through a spring struck from the ground, and restored his family and more; and that God found him patient and called him an excellent servant, awwab — ever-returning in repentance. The considerable body of narrative detail that surrounds this in the later literature is reported below where it is attributable, and identified as belonging to that literature rather than to the Qur'an. Where the approved sources state that a widely repeated detail rests on Israelite reports rather than on the Qur'an or the reliable hadith, that is said.

The Name

In the Hebrew Bible the name appears as Iyyob (Iyyov), and the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam records that both its origin and its meaning are disputed. It has been derived from the verb ayav, "to be an enemy, to act with hostility"; it has also been explained as meaning "to bear illness with patience", and as "O divine father, where are you". The name is old and widely attested outside Hebrew: it appears in Old South Arabian and in Thamudic as ʾyb, in Old Babylonian as Ayyabum, and in the Tell Amarna tablets as Ayab.

The same entry notes that although Ayyub is not an Arabic word, its closeness to the Arabic root awb, "to repent, to turn back", has been remarked upon. The observation is worth keeping in mind, because the Qur'an's own closing description of him in Surah Sad uses a word from that root: innahu awwab, "he was ever-returning in repentance".

Descent, Setting and Household

The sources do not agree on his descent, and they say so.

Ibn Ishaq, quoted by Ibn Kathir, gives his line as Ayyub, son of Mus, son of Razah, son of al-Is (Esau), son of Ishaq, son of Ibrahim al-Khalil — making him a great-grandson of Isaac through Esau, and so a descendant of Abraham. Ibn Kathir immediately records a variant that keeps Mus as his father but names the grandfather Raghwil, and then closes the question by noting that other genealogies besides these have been given for him. A third tradition appears in al-Tabari's Tarikh and in Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya, as recorded in the TDV entry: that Ayyub descended from Isaac on his father's side and from Lut on his mother's. Ibn Ishaq adds that he was a man of Rome — that is, of the Roman lands rather than of Arabia.

On where he lived the reports converge more closely. The scholars of tafsir and history, as Ibn Kathir reports them, place his lands in al-Bathaniyya, in the district of Hawran — the fertile volcanic country of southern Syria. The Book of Job places him in the land of Uz, which the TDV entry notes has been located either in Edom, to the south-east of the Dead Sea, or — on the strength of the name belonging to an Aramean tribe in Genesis — identified with that same Hawran, north-east of the Sea of Galilee. The tafsir and qisas al-anbiya literature likewise places him in the region of Syria.

His wife is not named in the Qur'an. The TDV entry records two identifications from the narrative literature: Layya (Leah), a daughter of Ya'qub, or Rahma, a daughter of Ifra'im (Ephraim) son of Yusuf.

When he lived is not established. The same entry records that he was held to be a contemporary of Ya'qub or of Yusuf, and alternatively to have lived after Yunus — placements separated by many centuries, and the sources do not settle between them. It also records that three men believed in him: two from his own country and one from Yemen.

Of his appearance the narrative literature says, on al-Tha'labi's authority, that he was tall, thick-haired and of imposing presence.

Prosperity and Character Before the Trial

Ayyub was a man of substantial wealth. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir describes him as having plenty of livestock, cattle and crops, many children and fine houses. The qisas literature is more specific, and the TDV entry reports from al-Tha'labi that his holdings included five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred slaves and five hundred female donkeys, besides many camels, cattle and horses. The Book of Job gives its own tally — seven sons and three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred female donkeys — and calls him the greatest of all the men of the East.

What the sources dwell on, however, is not the scale of the wealth but the conduct that went with it. The narrative literature describes him as god-fearing, merciful towards the poor, protective of widows and orphans, hospitable to guests, quick to help the traveller, and thankful for what God had given him.

One report preserves his own account of that period, and it is the most substantial piece of characterisation the tradition offers. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir records it from Yazid ibn Maysara, on the authority of Ibn Abi Hatim: when everything had been taken from him, Ayyub turned to the remembrance of God and said that God had given him wealth and children, and that there had been no corner of his heart not filled with attachment to those worldly things — and that God had then taken all of it away and emptied his heart, so that nothing now stood between him and his Lord. If his enemy Iblis knew of this, he added, he would envy him. He then said: "O Lord, You gave me wealth and children, and there was no one standing at my door complaining of some wrong I had done to him. You know that. I used to have a bed prepared for me, but I forsook it and said to myself: you were not created to lie on a comfortable bed. I only forsook that for Your sake."

The Trial

What the Qur'an establishes is the fact of a comprehensive affliction and nothing of its medical character. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir, commenting on Surah Sad, glosses the two words Ayyub uses: "distress" refers to the affliction of his body, and "torment" to the loss of his wealth and children.

The sequence in the tafsir literature is that he was tested first in his possessions and his children, losing everything, and then in his own body. Ibn Asakir, cited in Ibn Kathir's Stories of the Prophets, reports that his wealth, his many children and his large household were all taken from him and that he was afflicted in his body with a variety of illnesses. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir adds that he was left alone at the edge of the city, and that there was no one who treated him with compassion except his wife, who cared for him; it reached the point, it says, that she was in need, and she began to serve people to earn for his sake. Commenting on Surah Sad the same work puts it more starkly still: he was shunned by relatives and strangers alike, and she did not leave him morning or evening except when she was working, after which she would come straight back to him.

That the most severe trials fall on the most favoured is stated in a hadith the sources attach to this account. Narrated from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas in Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Musnad, where its chain is graded hasan, the Prophet was asked which people are most severely tested and answered: "The Prophets, then the righteous, then the next best and the next best. A man will be tested according to his level of religious commitment: if his religious commitment is solid, his test will be greater, and if there is some weakness in his religious commitment his test will be lighter. A servant will be tested until he walks upon the face of the earth with not a single sin on him."

The illness, and the Israelite reports

Descriptions of Ayyub's disease circulate widely, and the approved sources treat them as a distinct question on which they take a position.

Qasasul Ambiyaa states that the Israelite reports contain exaggerated accounts of his sickness, naming the kinds of disease that make people recoil from the sufferer, and that Islamic scholars hold it useless to discuss those reports, since neither the Qur'an nor the hadith names any disease or gives any detail of one. The TDV entry goes further: the notion that Ayyub's illness was so severe and repellent as to make people detest him cannot be reconciled with the dignity and standing of a prophet, no such information is found in the Qur'an or in the reliable hadith collections, and what appears to this effect in other Islamic works has passed into them from Israelite sources.

On this reading the affliction's character is not the point of the account, and its severity is measured by its effects rather than its symptoms: it was long, it cost him his standing among his people, and he bore it.

How long it lasted

The duration is genuinely unsettled, and the variants are worth naming because a reader will meet several of them. A narration from Anas ibn Malik, recorded by Ibn Jarir al-Tabari and Ibn Abi Hatim, gives eighteen years in the wording Ibn Kathir reproduces in both his Tafsir and his Stories of the Prophets; Qasasul Ambiyaa, reporting the same narration from Anas, gives thirteen years. Against these, the TDV entry records reports of three or seven years, and Qasasul Ambiyaa attributes three years to Wahb ibn Munabbih and seven to al-Hasan. A separate report in Ibn Majah has it that he fell ill on a Wednesday and was delivered on a Tuesday.

The Anas narration also supplies the episode that gives the years their human weight. Two men, the closest of his companions, kept visiting him morning and evening after everyone else had withdrawn. One said to the other that Ayyub must have committed some enormous sin, since after eighteen years God had still not shown him mercy; the second could not wait to repeat this to Ayyub. Ayyub's reply was that he did not know what they were talking about, but that God knew this much of him: if he passed two men quarrelling and heard them mention the name of God, he would go home and offer an expiation, in case they had used that name improperly.

The Supplication

The Qur'an gives his prayer twice, in slightly different words, and both are notable for what they do not contain.

In Surah al-Anbiya: "And [mention] Ayyub, when he cried to his Lord, 'Verily, distress has seized me, and You are the Most Merciful of all those who show mercy.'" (Qur'an 21:83) In Surah Sad: "And remember Our servant Ayyub, when he invoked his Lord, saying, 'Verily, Satan has afflicted me with distress and torment.'" (Qur'an 38:41)

There is no complaint against God in either, and no request. Qasasul Ambiyaa draws attention to the form of the second: Ayyub did not say "O God, You have struck me with distress and suffering", but referred the affliction to Satan — and it explains this as a mark of respect rather than a theological claim, since he was not conceding that Satan held any power over his body. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir notes that the prayer came when the affliction had gone on for a long time and things had become very bad, and when the term allotted by divine decree had reached its end.

The Answer: the Spring, and the Restoration

The answer came as an instruction: "Strike the ground with your foot. This is a spring of water to wash in, cool, and a refreshing drink." (Qur'an 38:42)

Ibn Kathir's Tafsir reads the verse as describing two acts. Ayyub struck the ground and a spring flowed; he was commanded to wash in it, and the pain and affliction on his body disappeared. He was then commanded to strike the ground in a different place, a second spring flowed, and he was commanded to drink from it; with that his inward complaints went, and he was sound within and without. Qasasul Ambiyaa quotes the same reading, notes that Ibn Hajar reported something similar on the authority of Ibn Jarir and Qatada, and adds the sensible observation that whether there was one spring or two does not greatly matter.

The Anas narration describes the moment of recovery from his wife's side. She had been in the habit of taking him by the hand when he came back from relieving himself. One day he was gone a long time — it was then that the revelation came and he struck the ground — and when she turned to look for him she saw a man from whom every trace of affliction had gone, looking better than he ever had. Not recognising him, she said: "May God bless you. Have you seen God's prophet, the one who is sorely tested? By God, I have never seen a man who looks more like him than you, if he were healthy." He said: "I am he."

Wealth returned with health. In the Anas narration Ayyub had two threshing floors, one for wheat and one for barley; God sent two clouds, and one rained gold on the wheat floor until it was full and the other rained gold on the barley floor until it was full. Qasasul Ambiyaa preserves a variant in which the bag of wheat he kept for his daily needs became a bag of gold and the bag of barley a bag of silver.

The best-attested report of this restoration is the one the hadith collections carry. Narrated by Abu Hurayra and recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari in three places — in the Book of Ghusl, in the Book of the Stories of the Prophets under the chapter heading of Qur'an 21:83, and in the Book of Tawhid — and also in Sunan an-Nasa'i, where it is graded sahih: "While Ayyub was bathing naked, golden locusts fell upon him, and he began gathering them in his garment. Then his Lord called to him, 'O Ayyub, have I not made you rich enough to have no need of what you see?' He said, 'Yes, O Lord — but I cannot do without Your blessing.'" Qasasul Ambiyaa records Ibn Hajar's judgement that al-Bukhari included the report on his own standard of authenticity and that Ibn Hajar held it fully authentic.

A second version, recorded by Ibn Abi Hatim from Abu Hurayra, ends differently: it was said to Ayyub, "Have you not had enough?" and he answered, "O Lord, who can ever have enough of Your mercy?" Ibn Kathir notes that none of the compilers of the six canonical collections narrated this wording, although in his judgement it meets the criteria for a report to be accepted as authentic, and that Ibn Hibban included it in his Sahih.

Then the family: "And We gave him back his family, and along with them the like thereof, as a mercy from Us and a reminder for those who understand." (Qur'an 38:43; the same is said at 21:84) How the phrase "and the like thereof" should be read was discussed at length. Ibn Kathir reports that Ibn Abbas held that his family themselves were restored to him, and that similar views came from Ibn Mas'ud and Mujahid and were held by al-Hasan and Qatada, who said that God brought his family back to life and added others like them. Against this, Qasasul Ambiyaa records that Shah Abd al-Qadir, Imam al-Razi and Ibn Hibban inclined to the other reading — that in place of the family he had lost, God gave him further children, more than before — and it concludes that the wording of the Qur'an admits both meanings.

Mujahid preserved a report that reconciles them. Ayyub was offered a choice: his family were with him in Paradise, and if he wished they would be brought back to him, or if he wished they would be left for him there and he would be compensated with others like them. He answered, "No — leave them for me in Paradise." So they were left for him there, and he was given others like them in this world.

Of the closing phrases, Ibn Kathir's Tafsir reads "as a mercy from Us" as being in return for his patience, steadfastness, repentance and humility, and "a reminder for those who understand" as meaning that those tested in their bodies, their wealth or their children have in Ayyub an example, so that they may not suppose that affliction means God does not care for them.

The Oath Concerning His Wife

The last verse of the passage is the one that most needs explaining, and the sources are careful about it: "And take in your hand a bundle of thin grass and strike therewith, and break not your oath. Truly, We found him patient. How excellent a servant! Verily, he was ever-returning in repentance." (Qur'an 38:44)

The verse presupposes an oath the Qur'an does not describe. Qasasul Ambiyaa states the position plainly: the Qur'an and the hadith make no mention of any details. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir is correspondingly restrained, saying only that Ayyub had become angry with his wife and was upset about something she had done, and had sworn that if God healed him he would strike her a hundred blows.

Three explanations circulate in the commentary literature, and none is established. Ibn Kathir's Stories of the Prophets reports that it was said she had sold her braids, and that it was also said that Satan appeared to her in a pleasing form and described to her how to prepare a cure for Ayyub, which she prepared and then told him of, whereupon he recognised what had happened and swore the oath. Qasasul Ambiyaa reports a third from the mufassirun: that, worn down by his affliction, she had spoken words that could be taken as a complaint against God, and that Ayyub could not bear to hear them.

What the sources agree on is the resolution and its reasoning. Ibn Kathir's Tafsir puts the difficulty as a question — when God had healed him, how were her service, mercy, compassion and kindness to be repaid with a beating? — and describes the verse as the way out God showed him: to take a bundle of a hundred thin stems and strike once, so that the oath was fulfilled and not broken. His Stories of the Prophets adds that this was a release granted for the sake of a patient wife, long-suffering, honest and dutiful, who had hoped for God's reward. The verse ends not with a rebuke but with the Qur'an's praise of Ayyub.

What the Qur'an Establishes

The four passages naming him are worth setting out together, since two are easily overlooked.

In Surah an-Nisa he appears in a list of those to whom God sent revelation: "Surely, We have revealed to you as We have revealed to Nuh and to the prophets after him; and We have revealed to Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub and their children, and to Isa, Ayyub, Yunus, Harun and Sulayman." (Qur'an 4:163) In Surah al-An'am he appears among those God guided: "And among his progeny, Dawud and Sulayman and Ayyub and Yusuf and Musa and Harun — and this is how We reward the good in deed." (Qur'an 6:84) The third and fourth are the accounts already given, at 21:83–84 and 38:41–44.

Immediately after his story in Surah al-Anbiya, the Qur'an names him among the patient in company with three others: "And [remember] Isma'il, Idris and Dhul-Kifl: all were from among the patient. And We admitted them to Our mercy. Verily, they were of the righteous." (Qur'an 21:85–86) Ibn Kathir's chapter on Ayyub notes that Dhul-Kifl was held by some to have been Ayyub's son, an identification he reports rather than asserts.

The Book of Job, and Where the Accounts Diverge

Because Job is far better known from the Bible than from the Qur'an, the difference between the two accounts matters, and the TDV entry sets it out directly.

The Book of Job supplies a long narrative the Qur'an does not have: the scene in which Satan is permitted to test him; the loss of his children and property, met with the words "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord"; the boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; the potsherd with which he scraped them and the ashes in which he sat; his wife's words, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die", and his answer that they should accept adversity from God as they had accepted good; the arrival of his three friends Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, who sat with him seven days and nights without speaking; and, after that, his cursing of the day of his birth, his insistence on his innocence, God's answer out of the whirlwind, his repentance, and a restoration of double his former wealth with seven more sons and three more daughters, followed by a hundred and forty further years of life.

On one point the two accounts are not merely different but incompatible, and the TDV entry states why. The Old Testament's account of Ayyub first bearing his calamities with patience and afterwards rebelling is contrary to the Islamic understanding of prophethood, which holds isma — preservation from sin, unbelief, doubt and falsehood — to be among the essential attributes of a prophet. The Qur'an records only that Ayyub laid his condition before his Lord in the form of a supplication; it contains nothing to the effect that he rebelled or sinned. On the contrary, its closing words on him are that God found him patient, that he was an excellent servant, and that he was ever-returning in repentance. The Qur'an, in the entry's words, does not confirm the Old Testament's account at this point.

Legacy: the Patience of Job

Ayyub's name became a byword, and in two directions at once. Ibn Kathir observes that it stands proverbially both for patience and for tribulation — for the quality and for the ordeal that called it out.

In the literatures of the Islamic world that proverb took a fixed form. The second part of the TDV entry, on his place in literature, records sabr-i Ayyub — "the patience of Job" — as a standing expression in Ottoman Turkish verse, and quotes poets who use it: Salim, who writes that the heart reaches its destination at last but needs the patience of Ayyub to endure; Şeyh Galib, for whom the physicians of the age prescribe that patience as the cure; Nev'i, who laments being given neither the lifespan of Nuh nor the endurance of Ayyub; and Hadiki, who makes it the first condition of love — "for lovers, the patience of Ayyub is needed". Yunus Emre and Taşlıcalı Yahya take up the trial itself, and Refi' the outcome: "Since the end of patience was deliverance, health came again to Ayyub." The command to strike the ground so that water might come forth became one of the recurring motifs of Eastern Islamic literature, and his endurance passed into folk song, proverb and idiom.

Of the end of his life the reports are brief and do not agree: the TDV entry records that he lived seventy years before his illness and seventy after his recovery, and also that his whole life was ninety-three years.

His standing in Islamic teaching rests on what the Qur'an says of him rather than on any of the narrative detail. He is the figure the Qur'an itself offers as a reminder to those tested in their bodies, their wealth or their children; and the judgement passed on him — that God found him patient, an excellent servant, ever-returning — is the reason his name is the one reached for whenever patience under affliction is spoken of.

References and Further Reading

Primary Islamic Sources

• Qur'an, Surah an-Nisa (4:163) — Ayyub named among the prophets to whom God sent revelation
• Qur'an, Surah al-An'am (6:84) — Ayyub named among those whom God guided and rewarded
• Qur'an, Surah al-Anbiya (21:83–84) — his supplication, God's answer, the removal of his distress and the restoration of his family; and 21:85–86, naming him among the patient with Isma'il, Idris and Dhul-Kifl
• Qur'an, Surah Sad (38:41–44) — the fullest account: his invocation, the spring struck from the ground, the restoration of his family, the oath concerning his wife, and God's description of him as patient, an excellent servant, ever-returning in repentance
• Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith 279 (Book of Ghusl), hadith 3391 (Book of the Stories of the Prophets, under the chapter heading of Qur'an 21:83) and hadith 7493 (Book of Tawhid) — the report of Abu Hurayra on the golden locusts, the only episode of Ayyub's story carried in the canonical collections
• Sunan an-Nasa'i, hadith 409, graded sahih — the same report
• Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in the Musnad of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, chain graded hasan — the hadith that the prophets are the most severely tested, and that a man is tested according to his religious commitment
• Sunan Ibn Majah, Book of Medicine — the report that Ayyub fell ill on a Wednesday and was delivered on a Tuesday, cited in the TDV entry

Classical Islamic Sources

• Ibn Kathir. Qisas al-Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets), the chapter on Ayyub — the fullest classical treatment consulted, carrying Ibn Ishaq's genealogy and its variants, the location of his lands in al-Bathaniyya in Hawran, Ibn Asakir's report of his losses, the narration of Anas ibn Malik, the reports on the golden locusts with their gradings, the two springs, and the two explanations offered for the oath
• Ibn Kathir. Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim, on Surah al-Anbiya 21:83–84 and Surah Sad 38:41–44 — the commentary consulted throughout, including the report of Yazid ibn Maysara from Ibn Abi Hatim, the readings of "and the like thereof" by Ibn Abbas, Ibn Mas'ud, Mujahid, al-Hasan and Qatada, and the restraint of the Tafsir on the oath
• Al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir. Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, and his Jami' al-Bayan — the source of the Anas narration in the wording Ibn Kathir reproduces, and of the report that Ayyub descended from Isaac on his father's side and from Lut on his mother's; consulted through Ibn Kathir and the TDV entry rather than in the original
• Al-Tha'labi, Ahmad ibn Muhammad. Ara'is al-Majalis (Qisas al-Anbiya) — the source, as cited in the TDV entry, for his appearance and for the extent of his holdings
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani — his judgement on the authenticity of the golden-locusts hadith, and his report on the two springs, as cited in Qasasul Ambiyaa

Academic and Scholarly Sources

• Ömer Faruk Harman. "EYYÛB", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 12 (Istanbul: TDV İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi, 1995), pp. 16–17. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/eyyub — the principal source for this article: the etymology and ancient attestations of the name, the land of Uz, the summary of the Book of Job, the reports on his descent, his wife, his era and his lifespan, and the statement of where the Islamic and biblical accounts diverge
• Nurettin Albayrak. "EYYÛB", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 12 (Istanbul, 1995), p. 17 — the second part of the entry, on his place in Islamic literature and the expression sabr-i Ayyub
• Qasasul Ambiyaa, the chapter on Ayyub — for the treatment of the Israelite reports, the three readings of the restoration of his family, the explanation of the oath given by the mufassirun, and the variant durations attributed to Wahb ibn Munabbih and al-Hasan
• Muhammad Shafi Usmani. Ma'ariful Qur'an, English translation — for the text and framing of Qur'an 4:163 and 6:84

Further Reading

• Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim), Prophet Isaac (Ishaq) and Prophet Jacob (Ya'qub) — the line from which the principal genealogy places Ayyub's descent
• Prophet Dhul-Kifl — named beside Ayyub among the patient in Surah al-Anbiya, and held by some to have been his son
• Prophet Jonah (Yunus) — the prophet after whom one strand of the tradition places Ayyub's lifetime
• The following lie outside the project's approved source base and nothing above rests on them; they are named for the reader: Roberto Tottoli, Biblical Prophets in the Quran and Muslim Literature; Brannon M. Wheeler, Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis; and Carol A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations, on the biblical book with which the Qur'anic account is most often compared