إِدْرِيس

The root د ر س (d-r-s) in Arabic has two distinct semantic fields. The first, and more commonly invoked in connection with Idrīs, means "to study, to read, to learn," from which we get madrasa (school) and dars (lesson). The second, older meaning is "to efface, to obliterate, to wear away," as in the effacing of traces by wind and time. Classical commentators like al-Ṭabarī seized on the first meaning, explaining Idrīs as "the one who studies much" or "the one devoted to learning." The morphological pattern ifʿīl (إفعيل) is unusual for Arabic names, which has led some linguists to question whether the name is genuinely Arabic at all.

The identification of Idrīs with the biblical Enoch (חֲנוֹךְ, Ḥanokh) is traditional but not Qurʾānic; it comes from the exegetical tradition. If the identification holds, then the name Idrīs bears no phonological relationship to Ḥanokh. Some scholars, notably Halperin and Newby, have suggested a connection to Greek Andreas, possibly through Syriac intermediary. Others have proposed derivation from an Egyptian or Babylonian source. The honest answer is that we do not know the origin of this name with certainty, which makes it one of the most linguistically mysterious names in the Qurʾān.

The Arabic folk etymology, Idrīs from darasa ("he studied"), is a textbook case of what linguists call "popular etymology" or Volksetymologie. It works: the name sounds like it could be an Arabic intensive form meaning "the great student," and the tradition that Idrīs was the first to write with a pen and the first to study astronomy makes the etymology narratively satisfying. Linguistic satisfaction, though, is not linguistic proof. The ifʿīl pattern is rare for proper names in Arabic, and the name's true origin remains opaque. This is a tier 3 case precisely because the Arabic reading is plausible but unverifiable.

Idrīs appears only twice in the Qurʾān, both times briefly. The Islamic tradition, drawing heavily on Isrāʾīliyyāt (Judeo-Christian traditions), identified him with Enoch and attributed to him the invention of writing, sewing, and astronomy. Al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr transmit traditions that Idrīs was "raised to a high station" (the Qurʾān, 19:57), understood as either Paradise or the fourth heaven. This association with knowledge and elevation made the d-r-s etymology irresistible to commentators, regardless of its linguistic merits.