Malfuzat – Volume III — Page 65
65 the children of Israel, the true reason for their believing in Moses, peace be upon him, becomes clear. The main reason was because they sought deliverance from servitude to Pharaoh. As far as matters of spirituality and worship of God were concerned, they always stumbled, and constantly exhibited disrespectful and impertinent behaviour. This was to such an extent that they said: 1 ً اهللَ جَهْرَة ی َ نَر ي ّٰ لَنْ نُّؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَت We will by no means believe thee until we see Allah face to face. Then, they also said: 2 َ قٰعِدُوْن هٰهُنَا اِذْهَبْ اَنْتَ وَ رَبُّكَ فَقَاتِلَاۤ اِنَّا Therefore, go thou and thy Lord and fight, and here we sit. Moreover, during the brief time when Moses as was away, they began to worship the calf, and they were obstinate and constantly raised objections. When one reflects on their state of affairs as a whole, it becomes clearly evident that all they wanted was to be free from the bondage of Pharaoh and nothing more. They were themselves devoid of direction or leadership, and so they immediately became prepared to do as Moses, peace be upon him, commanded. Since they had suf- fered immensely, and as the adage goes: what will a man not do to save himself from death, the only way that they could see themselves uplifted was by going forth with Moses as , but ultimately they became a stumbling block in the way of his triumphs. In short, Moses as was not compelled to toil and labour as greatly. His nation was fettered in the bondage of slavery and were ready to accept some- one who would liberate them. On account of this, many hundreds and thousands of people accepted Moses as in one day, and these people demonstrated through their actions, the sort of nation they were and the degree of benefit that they derived from the teaching of Moses as. In short, as far as leading them out of Egypt was concerned, this was no great accomplishment. When the time came for them to be reformed and when Moses as sought to transform them into worshippers of God so that they could enter the promised land, this era was lost away in inso- lence, disrespect and internal transgression. As a result, ultimately, even Moses as himself could not enter the promised land, and so he too could not be given the name Muhammad (the Most Praised). 1 al-Baqarah , 2:56 2 al-Ma’idah , 5:25