The story
Alyasa carries the torch after Ilyas in the line of Bani Israil's prophets. The Qur'an names him twice, each time inside a list of honor: 'And Ismail and Alyasa and Yunus and Lut: each We preferred over the worlds' (6:86), and 'remember Ismail and Alyasa and Dhul-Kifl: all are among the excellent' (38:48).
The tradition remembers him continuing Ilyas's stand against the Baal cult and shepherding the believers of his age. The Qur'an's economy with his story teaches its own lesson: some servants are famous with the people, and some are famous with Allah, and the second register is the one that survives.