Ezra ( ; Arabic: '''''', 'Uzair, Turkish: '''') is a personal name with Semitic roots.

The historical Ezra was a priestly scribe who is thought to have led about 5,000 Israelite exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BCE. Many scholars credit him as the author of the Book of Ezra and the Book of 1 Chronicles in the Bible. This attribution of these books to Ezra is based off even earlier Jewish scholarship.

He is commemorated with the other Minor prophets in the Calendar of saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31.

According to the genealogy in Ezra 7:1-5, Ezra was the son of Seraiah (2 Kings 25:18-21), and a lineal descendant of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron. A similar genealogy is given in 1 Esdras 8, as well as at the beginning of the Latin version of 2 Esdras, with the addition of a few names. All versions of 2 Esdras mention that he was also known as "Salathiel", "Shaltiel" or "Sutu`el" (depending on the version language).

In the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes I Longimanus, Ezra obtained leave to go to Jerusalem and to take with him a company of Israelites (Ezra 8). Artaxerxes showed great interest in Ezra's undertaking, granting him "all his requests," and giving him gifts for the house of God. Ezra assembled a band of approximately 5,000 exiles to go to Jerusalem. They rested on the banks of the Ahava for three days and organized their four-month march across the desert.

No record exists for the 14 years between 459 BCE, when Ezra is thought to have organized the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the Israelite nation, and 445 BCE, when Nehemiah first appears in the Bible's chronology. Nehemiah's first recorded act was to rebuild the ruined wall of the city. After this reconstruction, a great group of people gathered in Jerusalem to dedicate the wall. On the appointed day, Ezra and his assistants read the Torah aloud to the whole population. According to the text, a great religious awakening occurred. For successive days, beginning on Rosh Hashanah, the people rejoiced in the holy days of the month of Tishri. Ezra read the entire scroll of the Torah to the people, and he and other scholars and Levites explained and interpreted the deeper meanings and applications of the Torah to the assembled crowd. These festivities culminated in an enthusiastic and joyous seven-day celebration of the Festival of Sukkot, concluding on the eighth day with the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. On the 24th day, immediately following the holidays, they held a solemn assembly, fasting and confessing their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. Then, they renewed their national covenant to follow the Torah and to observe and fulfill all of the Lord's commandments, laws and decrees (Neh. 10:30). Abuses were rectified, and arrangements for the temple service were completed.

According to Josephus, Ezra was the contemporary of Xerxes son of Darius, rather than of Artaxerxes, and he died around the time Eliashib became High Priest (AotJ 11.5.1-5).

According to Rabbinic Jewish tradition, Ezra collected and arranged some relatively minor books that today form part of the canon of the Hebrew Bible. Traditional Jewish sources do not mention any process of fundamental editing or redacting of the Chumash, or Five Books of Moses. Rather, the aggada suggests that Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly edited such works as Daniel, Esther and Ezekiel (Bava Batra 14b).

The Deuterocanonical book of II Esdras (the Apocalypse of Ezra, which is also known as IV Ezra) tells us that Ezra wrote 94 Books in 40 days; 24 of those Books were to be distributed among the people, and the other 70 were to be given to the wise alone.

According to a theory expounded by some Biblical scholars, Ezra did play a fundamental role in the compilation of nearly all parts of the Hebrew Bible, including the Five Books of Moses. According to this theory, the documentary hypothesis, Ezra is thought to have interspersed various primary texts with occasional additions of his own that were intended to help reconcile apparent contradictions among the original texts. Discussion of the merits of the documentary hypothesis can be found in works by Rabbi David Weiss Halivni such as Revelation Restored: Divine Writ and Critical Responses (Westview Press, 1997), and Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (Oxford University Press, 1998), as well as in works such as "Who Wrote the Bible?" (Harper San Francisco, 1997 reprint) by Richard Elliot Friedman.

Ezra is known in the Qur'an as Uzair and is considered as one of the prophets by some Muslim scholars .

Also in some Islamic narrations, Ezra is the person mentioned in the following Qur'anic verse :

Or (take) the similitude of one who passed by a hamlet, all in ruins to its roofs. He said: "Oh! how shall Allah bring it (ever) to life, after (this) its death?" but Allah caused him to die for a hundred years, then raised him up (again). He said: "How long didst thou tarry (thus)?" He said: (Perhaps) a day or part of a day." He said: "Nay, thou hast tarried thus a hundred years; but look at thy food and thy drink; they show no signs of age; and look at thy donkey: And that We may make of thee a sign unto the people, Look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe them with flesh." When this was shown clearly to him, he said: "I know that Allah hath power over all things." ()

According to some Muslim commentators, the town is Jerusalem (after its destruction) and Ezra is the person who did not believe it would be rebuilt .

Quran claims that Jews exalted Ezra as "Son of God".

The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! ()

They take their priests (Ahbar) and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah: there is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him).()

According to G. D. Newby in A History Of The Jews Of Arabia, "Jews of Hijaz" associated Ezra as Bene Elohim or Son of God.. He claims that Jews of Arabia exalted him "particularly because he was equated with Enoch as the Scribe of God, (and) could be termed one of the Bene Elohim. And, of course, he would fit the description of religious leader (one of the ahbar of the ) whom the Jews had exalted.". Moreover, H. Z. Hirschberg mentions in Encyclopaedia Judaica, that according to muslim historians there was some group of Yemenite Jews who believed that 'Uzayr was indeed the son of Allah' . Ibn Kathir also mentions the reasons for Jewish exaltation because Ezra could write down the Torah out of his memory and according to Jews, Moses could not get the Torah but in a book however "'Uzair got it without a book" . Moreover, Quran further claims that despite Jews and christians were "commanded to worship but One Allah" through scriptures, yet they exalted their clergy as Lords. .

No Jewish text makes the claim that Ezra is the son of God. Book of Ezra, a Jewish text predating the time of Muhammad states in that Ezra is the son of Seraiah. Judaism holds the idea of any person being God, or a part of God, or a mediator to God, to be heresy, and no branch of Judaism makes Ezra a son of God.. Exodus Rabba 29 states, "...I am the first, I have no father; I am the last, I have no brother. Beside Me there is no God; I have no son.". The belief that Ezra is the son of God has never been a tenet of Judaism.

Of note is that Judaism believes that God, as the creator of time, space, and matter, is beyond them, and will not be born, die, or have a son. Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be God, part of God, or the literal son of God. The Jerusalem Talmud, another Jewish text predating the time of Muhammad states explicitly in (Ta'anit 2:1) : "if a man claims to be God, he is a liar.".

In Karitism, mourners use the word meharef to represent a whole range of Muslim anti-Jewish slander including the lie that Jews considered Ezra to be the son of God. Salmon b. Yeruhim, said, "A meharef is one who reviles us for sins we have did and other which we haven't ... The latter includes the assertion that we take Ezra as the son of God."

Abraham Geiger, A Jewish theologian said concerning that Jews believed Ezra to be the son of God the following, "According to the assertion of Muhammad the Jews held Ezra to be the Son of God. This is certainly a mere misunderstanding which arose from the great esteem in which Ezra was undoubtedly held. This esteem is expressed in the following passage "Ezra would have been worthy to have made known the law if Moses had not come before him." Truly Muhammad sought to cast suspicion on the Jews' faith in the unity of God, and thought he had here found a good opportunity of so doing."

*Ezra in the Biblical Encyclopedia Tanakh Profiles See also translations of names. *Jewish Encyclopedia: Ezra the Scribe