الْيَسَع

Al-Yasaʿ (الْيَسَع) is one of the most phonologically puzzling prophetic names in the Qur'an. The prefixed definite article al- is unusual for a proper name in Arabic and has generated significant grammatical debate. Classical grammarians were divided: some treated the al- as integral to the name (an anomalous foreign construction), while others, including Sībawayhi, analyzed it as the genuine Arabic article attached to a foreign stem. The root sequence y-s-ʿ might superficially suggest the Arabic root و س ع (w-s-ʿ, 'to be spacious, to encompass'), but this connection is purely coincidental and was not pursued by serious medieval lexicographers. The name remains morphologically unanalyzable within Arabic. It cannot be parsed as any known verbal or nominal pattern. Its two brief Qur'anic mentions (the Qurʾān, 6:86 and the Qurʾān, 38:48) place it in catalogue lists of prophets without any narrative elaboration, leaving the name as a bare signifier with no Arabic semantic content.

The Hebrew אֱלִישָׁע (Elisha) is another theophoric compound: אֱלִי (Eli, 'my God') + שָׁע (from the root י-שׁ-ע, y-sh-ʿ, 'to save'). The name means 'My God saves' or 'My God is salvation.' This is structurally parallel to Eliyyahu ('My God is YHWH'), and the two prophets are biblically paired as master and successor (2 Kings 2). The phonological journey from Elisha to al-Yasaʿ is dramatic: the theophoric prefix Eli- is lost entirely, and what remains is a truncated form that no longer carries its salvific meaning. Jeffery (1938) argues that the Qur'anic form likely derives from a Syriac intermediary, where the name circulated as something close to Alīshāʿ. The addition of the Arabic article al- may represent a reanalysis of the initial syllable al-/el- as the familiar Arabic definite marker.

No meaningful connection exists between the Arabic surface form and the Hebrew source meaning. The salvific theology encoded in 'My God saves' is completely invisible to an Arabic audience. The root ي ش ع (y-sh-ʿ) is not productive in Arabic, and while the broader Semitic root *y-sh-ʿ for 'salvation' does appear in other Semitic languages, it left no trace in the Arabic lexicon. The name al-Yasaʿ functions in the Qur'an as a proper noun with zero semantic transparency, a marker of prophetic identity stripped of its etymological message.

Elisha was the prophetic successor to Elijah in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, active during the mid-ninth century BCE. The biblical narrative (2 Kings 2-13) presents him as inheriting a "double portion" of Elijah's spirit, and his career is marked by an extensive series of miracles: purifying water, multiplying oil, raising the dead, healing Naaman the Syrian of leprosy, and feeding a hundred men with twenty loaves. Where Elijah was the fierce confronter of royal idolatry, Elisha operated more as a miracle-working counselor embedded in the political life of Israel. In the Qur'an, al-Yasaʿ receives the briefest possible treatment: just two mentions in prophetic catalogues, with no narrative, no miracles, and no characterization. Islamic tradition, drawing on Isrāʾīliyyāt sources, preserves some of the biblical miracle stories, but the Qur'anic text itself is entirely silent on his prophetic career, making al-Yasaʿ one of the least elaborated figures in the entire Qur'anic prophetic roster.