Muslim tradition.

We extract the following passage from the learned and remarkable work that Mr. Géraldy Saintine published under the title Three Years in Judea. [Trois ans en Judée — Google Books.]

“When the sultan of Babel Bakhtunnassar (Nebuchadnezzar) was sent by God to punish the children of Israel, who had abandoned the doctrine of unity, he stripped the temple of all the precious objects that were gathered there. And, reserving for himself the throne of Solomon, with its supports, the two lions of pure gold, animated by a magical art, which guarded the entrance, he distributed the rest of the spoils to the various kings of his court. The king of Roum received the garment of Adam and the rod of Moses; the king of Antakie had the throne of Kelkis and the marvelous peacock, whose tail, all of precious stones, formed over the throne a rich canopy; the king of Andalusia took the golden table of the Prophet. A stone coffer, which contained the Torah (Bible), was in the midst of all these riches, and no one paid it any attention, although, of all the treasures, it was the most precious. Thus, they left it abandoned to the whim of the thieves, who roamed the city and the temple, laying their hands on everything they found. The repository of the divine word disappeared in that immense disorder. “Forty years later, His anger being appeased, God resolved to establish the children of Israel in their inheritance and raised up the Prophet Euzer (Ezra) — May God save him! — predestined by the divine will to a glorious mission. He had spent his whole youth in prayer and meditation, neglecting human sciences to absorb himself in the contemplation of the Infinite Being, and he lived apart from the world, in the interior of one of the grottoes that surrounded the holy city. That grotto is still today called El Azérie. n Obeying the order of God, he came out of his retreat and came among the children of Israel to indicate to them how they should rebuild the temple and reestablish the honor of the ancient rites.

“But the people did not believe in the prophet's mission. They declared that they would not submit to the law; that they would even cease the works of building the temple and go to dwell in other lands, if there were not presented to them the book in which our lord Moses — May God save him! — had consigned all the religious prescriptions dictated to him on Mount Sinai. The book had disappeared and all searches to find it were fruitless. Euzer, then, in that great embarrassment, made fervent prayers to God to draw him out of that affliction and to keep the people from persisting on the path of perdition. He was seated beneath a tree, contemplating with sadness the ruins of the temple, around which the unruly multitude stirred, when, suddenly, a voice from on high ordered him to write; and, although he had never held a qalam (pen, reed), he obeyed immediately. From the midday prayer until the following day at the same hour, without eating, without rising from the blessed place where he was seated, he continued to write all that the celestial voice dictated to him, not hesitating for a single instant, nor even pausing before the darkness of night, for a supernatural light illuminated his Spirit and an angel guided his hand. “All the children of Israel were astonished and contemplated in silence this manifestation of divine omnipotence. But when the prophet finished his miraculous copy, the imams, envious of the particular favor of which they had just been the object, claimed that the new book was a diabolical invention and that it in no way resembled the old one.

“Euzer addressed himself again to the Infinite Goodness and, yielding to a sudden inspiration, made his way, followed by all the people, toward the spring of Siloam. Having arrived before the spring, he raised his hands to heaven, uttered a long and ardent prayer, and, with him, the whole multitude prostrated itself. Suddenly there appeared a square stone on the surface of the water, floating as though sustained by an invisible hand; in it the imams recognized, trembling, the sacred coffer, long lost. Euzer took it with respect. The coffer opened by itself; the Torah of Moses came out of it, as though it were animated with a life of its own, and the new copy, escaping from the bosom of the prophet, went and placed itself in the sacred case. “Doubt was no longer permitted. Nevertheless, the holy man required that the imams compare the two copies. These, despite their confusion, obeyed his will. After a long examination, they testified in loud voices that not a single word, not a kareket (accent) made the least difference between the book written by Euzer and the one that had been traced by Moses. Since they rendered this homage to the truth, God, to punish them for their errors, extinguished their eyes and plunged them into eternal darkness.

“Thus, the children of Israel were brought back to the faith of their fathers. The place where the chief whom God had given them had seated himself was afterward called Kerm ech Cheick (enclosure or vineyard of the Sheikh).”

Who will not recognize in this account several Spiritist phenomena that mediums reproduce before our eyes and that have nothing supernatural about them?

[1] Arabic name of the grotto known under the name of Tomb of Lazarus.