Reviving Shem, the son of Noah – one of the great miracles of Jesus (peace be upon him)
In historical narrations and books of tafsīr such as those of Ibn Kathīr and al-Thaʿlabī, it is mentioned that when Jesus (peace be upon him) spread the message of monotheism among the Children of Israel, his enemies continued to raise doubts.
They said: “You only revive those who have recently died; perhaps they were merely unconscious!” (Earlier pages have mentioned several other revived dead.)
To refute this doubt, they demanded an impossible miracle: reviving someone who had been dead for thousands of years.
For this purpose, they chose Shem, the son of Noah, who according to historical estimations had died nearly 2,000 years earlier at that time.
Jesus (peace be upon him) went toward the grave of Shem, which was said to be near Jerusalem. There, the Prophet of Allāh, with complete certainty, turned toward the sky and supplicated in the Great Name of Allāh, asking that the truth be made manifest to the arrogant deniers.
When Jesus (peace be upon him) called out: “Rise by the permission of Allāh,” the earth shook and split open. A man emerged from the grave whose hair and beard were half white. This astonished those present, because Shem had died at the age of six hundred, with black hair, and in that era the whitening of hair was either unknown or extremely rare.
Jesus (peace be upon him) asked:
“O Shem, why has your hair turned white?”
Shem replied trembling:
“When I heard your voice, I thought it was the sound of the Trumpet announcing the Day of Resurrection. Out of the immense fear of that Day, my hair turned white in that brief moment.”
To silence the skeptics, Shem related details that no one else could have known.
He spoke of the Great Flood, and described the Ark of his father Noah (peace be upon him):
• The Ark had three levels:
• one for wild animals,
• one for humans,
• and one for birds.
• He described their life aboard the Ark and their settling upon Mount Judi.
Shem, who had remained in the realm of Barzakh for two thousand years, delivered a powerful message.
He said:
“Despite having been dead for two thousand years, the bitterness and pain of the agony of death still remain in my throat, and I have not forgotten them.”
When Christ (peace be upon him) gave him the choice of returning to worldly life, Shem refused and said:
“I do not wish to experience the pain of death again.”
Then, by the supplication of Jesus (peace be upon him), he returned to his grave and became dust once more, and the earth closed over him.
⸻
Writing & research: our brother, Shahram Barzanji
Book: Jinōka u Mrov (The Jinn and The Man)
Reviewed by: Shaykh Hallo Muhammad Rashid
