IDRIS

an immortal figure in Islamic legend, mentioned in the Qur'an (Islamic sacred scriptures) as a prophet. According to the traditions of the Sunnah, the major sect of Islam, Idris appeared sometime between the prophets Adam and Noah and transmitted divine revelation through several books. He did not die but was taken bodily to paradise to spend eternity with God. Popular legend also credits him with the invention of writing and sewing and of several forms of divination. He is regarded as the patron saint of craftsmen and Muslim knights. Scholars, however, have not been able to assign Idris a definite historical identity. On linguistic grounds he has been variously identified as the biblical Ezra, the Christian Apostle Andrew, Alexander the Great's cook Andreas, and sometimes as the biblical Elijah or Muslim al-Khidr. Parallels have also been drawn between the biblical Enoch and Idris, on the basis of several striking similarities: both are pious men taken physically to paradise, and both live a reputed 365 years, suggesting that they had originally been sun gods. Idris (and Enoch) has also been woven into the Islamic mythology surrounding the Greco-Egyptian god Hermes Trismegistos as the first incarnation of the tripartite Hermes.