16. PROPHETS’ DU‘Ā (PRAYER) IN THE QUR’ĀN (10)
12. Mūsā (Moses) a.s.
Mūsā (Moses) ) a.s. is mentioned 136 times in 34 chapters in the
Qur’an.[1] He is then mentioned the most compared to
other prophets and in most chapters in the Qur’an, and the story of him in it
is also the longest one, mainly in six chapters:
(1) sūrat
al-Baqarah (chapter 2) in verse 49-74, 83-93; 122-123;
(2) sūrat al-A‘rāf
(chapter 7) in verse 103-145; 148-156; 159-163; 171.
(3) sūrat Yūnus
(Jonah, chapter 10) in verse 75-93
(4) sūrat Ṭāhā
(chapter 20) in verse 9-52; 56-73; 77-99.
(5) sūrat
al-Shu‘arā’ (Poets, chapter 26) in verse 10-66
(6) sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ
(chapter 28) in verse 3-46
In the Bible, the narratives
of Moses are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. In the Qur'an, the narratives of Mūsā are in the following
passages: 2:49-61, 7:103-160, 10:75-93, 17:101-104, 20:9-97, 26:10-66, 27:7-14,
28:3-46, 40:23-30, 43:.46-55, 44:17-31, and 79:15-25. The story in his
childhood is in Q. 28:3-46 with some commentaries are as follows:
(6) Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ (The Narration, chapter 28)
verse 3-43 how Mūsā was raised in the Pharaoh (Fir‘awn)’s house
until he escaped but return again to Pharaoh bringing with him Allah’s message
to Pharaoh. Commentaries of some Qur’an commentators are also included here.
Allah told the Prophet s.a.w. the story of Moses and Pharaoh as they
really were, as if he was seeing them himself. Pharaoh was an arrogant
oppressor and tyrant. He forced the Israelites (the Children of Israel, the
Hebrews) to do most of the menial work and to hard labour night and day.
As Pharaoh feared that with the increase of
the number of the Children of Israel, there might appear among them who would
be the cause of the destruction and the downfall of his kingdom he ordered the
newly born male babies to be killed. But Allah was on the side of the weak and
oppressed Children of Israel. So many of their baby boys were killed that the
Egyptians (Copts) worried that if these people died out they might have to do
the heavy labour the Children of Israel used to do. They suggested to the
Pharaoh that the boys born should be killed in one year, and would be left
alone the following year. Hārūn (Aaron) was born in the year where the boys
were not killed, but his younger brother Mūsā was born in the year boys would be killed.
Egyptian midwives were to check on Israelite pregnant woman, and to write down
their names. They would come again for the delivery of the babies. Baby boys
would be killed, and baby girls would be spared.[2]
The classical Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathīr said that when
the mother of Mūsā became pregnant of him, she did not show any sign of
pregnancy, and none of the midwives noticed it. But when she gave birth to a
boy she became stressed and did not know what to do with him. Then Allah
inspired her to suckle him, but when she feared for him, then to cast him into
the river, not to fear and not to grieve, as He would bring him back to her and
would make him one of His messengers (verse 7). In this verse Allah gave here
two orders, namely, to suckle her baby and to throw him into the river, two
prohibitions, namely, not to fear and not to grieve, and two promises, namely
Allah would bring him back to her and would make him a messenger. All of these
promises were fulfilled.
Ibn
Kathīr said further that the house of Mūsā ’s mother was on the banks of the
Nile, and she took a box and made it into a cradle. When someone whom she did not trust came to
her, she put the baby in the box, put it in the river, and tied it with a rope.
One day she forgot to tie the box, and the water carried him away, past the
house of Pharaoh, and some female servants picked it up and took it the
Pharaoh’s wife, whose name, according to tradition, Āsiyah bint Muzāhim.[3]
She opened the box and they found a beautiful baby.
When Pharaoh saw the baby Mūsā
he wanted to kill him, fearing that he might be one of the Children of Israel,
but his wife told him that he was a comfort of the eye for her and for him, and
that the baby might be of benefit to them or they might adopt him as a son.
Being a future prophet Allah had made whoever saw him would love him. The
Qur’an commentators Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr, Mujāhid, Ibn Jurayj, and al-Suddī when
the Pharaoh’s beard was pulled out by the infant Mūsā the Pharaoh wanted
to kill him saying that he might be one of the babies of the Israelites. But
his wife Āsiyah told him that the infant was from outside the country drifted
down the river, and was still an infant and
did not have any intelligence yet. She said, “I shall put sapphire and a brand
of fire in front of him. If he takes the sapphire, you may kill him, but if he
takes the brand of fire it means that he is still too young to have intelligence.
The angel Jibrīl (Gabriel) led Mūsā’s hand to the brand of fire, and he put his hand into his mouth and burnt his
tongue. This was the reason he could not speak properly and asked Allah to
appoint his elder brother Hārūn (Aaron) to assist him in delivering the message
to the Pharaoh.
As the infant Mūsā refused
any wet nurse brought to him, they took him to the market place to find a
suitable woman to nurse him. His sister recognized him and offered them a woman
suitable for him which was his own mother. When he accepted her milk, she was
offered to stay with the Pharaoh’s wife to nurse the baby, but she refused,
saying that she had a husband and children to look after. However, she would be
ready if she could take the baby and nurse him in her own house (Ibn ‘Abbas’s
commentary), and the Pharaoh’s wife agreed. Then he was brought back to the
Pharaoh’s household and treated as an adopted son of the Pharaoh and his wife.
When Mūsā reached maturity
Allah gave him wisdom and religious knowledge. He became Allah’s prophet and
messenger. One day he entered the city and found two men fighting, one of them
was an Israelite like him, and the other was an enemy, an Egyptian (a Coptic).
The Israelite asked him for help, and as people were not paying attention, he
hit the Egyptian with his fist, and the man died.[4] He became very sorry and said that this was
the Satan’s doing, the plain misleading enemy. He prayed for Allah’s
forgiveness, and He forgave him.
... رَبِّ إِنِّي ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِي فَاغْفِرْ لِي...
(القصص: 16(
“My Lord! Verily, I have wronged myself
so forgive me…”(Q. 28:16)
He also prayed and
promised not to help wrongdoers. He said,
رَبِّ بِمَا أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيَّ
فَلَنْ أَكُونَ ظَهِيرًا لِلْمُجْرِمِينَ (17)
“My Lord! For that with which You have forgiven
me, I
will nevermore be
a helper of the criminals.”(Q.
28:17)
Mūsā
became afraid as the consequence of his action.
He went out and saw the man whom he had helped the day before was
fighting again with another Egyptian. When the man asked him to help him again,
Mūsā told him, “Verily, you are a plain misleader!”
meaning, “You obviously lead people astray and are very evil.”
According Ibn Kathīr’s
commentary, when Mūsā intended to attack the Egyptian, the Israelite thought
that he wanted to attack him, because of what he had just said, blaming him as
an evil man. So, he said, “O Mūsā! Is it your intention to kill me as you
killed a man yesterday?” When the
Egyptian heard this, he took the news to the Pharaoh. Pharaoh became angry and
sent people after him to bring him to him. A man running from the farthest end
of the city came to him and told him to escape, as the chiefs were consulting
one another to kill him. He escaped in as state of fear, and prayed,
... رَبِّ نَجِّنِي مِنَ الْقَوْمِ الظَّالِمِينَ (القصص:21(
“My Lord! Save me from people who are
wrong-doers” (Q. 28:21)
When he
went to Madyan (Midian) he said, “It may be that my Lord guides me to the
right way.” Indeed, Allah guided him to the straight path in this world and
the Hereafter, and guided others. He reached the well of Madyan where he drank
and found a group of shepherds watering their sheep, but two women waited until
the shepherds finished, as their father was an old man and could not do the
job, watering the sheep. Mūsā helped the two women watering their sheep, then
sat beneath a tree, and prayed, heard by the two women.
رَبِّ إِنِّي لِمَا أَنْزَلْتَ إِلَيَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍ
فَقِيرٌ (القصص:24)
“My Lord! Truly, I am
in need of whatever
good that
You bestow on me!” (Q. 28:24)
The old man (a priest of Midian whose name was “Reuel”
according to Exodus 2:16, and the priest
of Midian whose name was “Jethro” according to Exodus 3:1, and Exodus 18:1) was
surprised to find his daughters came back quickly with the sheep. They told him
that a man called Mūsā had helped them. So he sent one of his daughters to call
him to meet him. She came walking shyly and told him that her father invited
him that he might reward him for having watering their sheep. After telling
about his story the old man told him to calm down, not to fear any longer, as
he had escaped from people of wrongdoings, and he had now been in a land where
they had no authority.
One of the two daughters[5] asked
her father to hire him as a shepherd to look after their sheep, because he was
the best man to hire, he was strong and trustworthy. ‘Umar, Ibn ‘Abbās, Qatādah
and other Qur’an commentators said that when her father asked her what she knew
about it, she said: “He lifted a rock which could only be lifted by ten
men, and when I came back with him, I walked ahead of him, he asked me to walk
behind him, and if he gets confused about the route, he asked me to throw a
pebble so that he would know which way to go.” (to be continued)
(CIVIC, 7.11.2014)
المكتبة الشاملة
تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ (
تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671 هـ(
تفسير ابن كثير (ت. 774 هـ(
Abu Khalil,
Dr. Shauqi . Atlas of the Qur’an. Riyadh, Darussalam, 2003
Ali,
A.Yusuf. The Meanings of the Holy
Qur’an
Asad,
Muhammad. The Message of the Qur’an.
Holy Bible: New International
Version, 1973
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Moses.html
http://www. mediaislamia.com/2
[1] See Q. 2:51, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 67, 87, 92, 108,
136, 246, 248; 3:84; 4:153 (twice), 164; 5:20, 22, 24; 6:84, 91, 154; 7:103, 104, 115, 117, 122, 127, 128, 131,
134, 138, 142 (twice), 143 (twice), 144, 148,
150, 154, 155, 159, 160; 10:75; 10: 75, 77, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88; 11: 17, 96, 110; 14: 5, 6, 8;
17: 2, 101 (twice); 18:60, 66; 19:51;
20: 9, 11, 17, 19, 36, 40, 49, 57, 61, 65, 67, 70, 77, 83, 86, 88,
91; 21:48; 22:44;
23: 45, 49; 25:35; 26:10, 43, 45, 58, 52, 61, 63, 65; 27: 7. 9. 10; 28: 3, 7, 10, 15, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30 , 31,
36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 48 (twice), 76;
29:39; 32:23; 33:7, 69; 37:114, 120; 40:23, 26, 27, 37, 53; 41:45; 42:13;
43:46, 46:12, 30; 51:38;
53:36; 61:5; 79:15; 87:19.
[2] According to the Old Testament the midwives did not
obey the king of Egypt to kill the baby boys, for fear of God. When the king
asked them why they had let the boys live, they said: “Hebrew women are not
like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives
arrive.” (Exodus 1:19).
[3] Unlike the Old Testament which mentions genealogies,
names and details in its stories, the Qur’an limits itself with the course of
the story and moral lessons behind it. In the story of Joseph, for example,
Yusuf only was mentioned by name, neither his parents nor his brothers. In the
story of Moses, he and his elder brother Aaron only, were mentioned by name,
and both of them were prophets. It was said that he was born in Goshen, Egypt
in c. 1392 B.C.E. and died in Moab, Syria in c. 1272 B.C.E. He was the son of
Amram and Joshebed of the tribe of Levi, one of the elder brothers of Joseph.
According to the Old Testament it was Pharaoh’s daughter who found the baby
while she was bathing in the Nile. His elder sister Miriam suggested to her to
find a Hebrew woman to nurse him for her. She agreed to take him to the woman
which was his own mother and paid her, until he grew older, and took him back
to her (Pharaoh’s daughter). She adopted him and called him “Moses” (Exodus
2:5-10).
[4] According to the Old Testament Moses went to see his
people the Israelites at their hard labour and saw an Egyptian beating a
Hebrew. As no one saw him he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand
(Exodus 2:11-12).
[5] He was said to have had seven daughters (see Exodus
2:16)
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