Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 609
UNVEILING OF THE ‘UNSEEN' BY THE QURAN. A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE أَمَنَتْ بِهِ بَنُوا اسْرَاوِيْلَ وَاَنَا مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِيْنَ * أَنْقَنَ وَقَدْ عَصَيْتَ قَبْلُ وَكُنْتَ مِنَ الْمُفْسِدِينَ * فَالْيَوْمَ نُنَجِّيكَ بِبَدَنكَ لِتَكُوْنَ لِمَنْ خَلْفَكَ آيَةٌ وَإِنْ كَثِيرًا مِّنَ النَّاسِ عَنْ أَيْتِنَا لَغَفُلُوْنَ * 93-10:91. And We brought the children of Israel across the sea; and Pharaoh and his hosts pursued them wrongfully and aggressively, till, when the calamity of drowning overtook him, he said, 'I believe that there is no God but He in Whom the children of Israel believe, and I am of those who submit to Him. ". What! Now! While thou wast disobedient before this and wast of those who create disorder. . So this day We will save thee in thy body alone that thou mayest be a Sign to those who come after thee. . And surely, many of mankind are heedless of Our. Signs. ². It should be especially noted here that contrary to this. Quranic statement, the Biblical account does not as much as hint at the possibility of the retrieval of Pharaoh's body: ‘…. . not so much as one of them remained. " 6. Hence, till the time the Quran mentions the saving of. Pharaoh's body with the purpose that the posterity may learn their lesson from it, no human source of history had ever referred to it. . When the Quran was revealed, the tombs of the. Egyptian kings lay buried deep under layer upon layer of desert sand. Little was known of the science of mummification to the people of that age, certainly not to the Arabs. No books or tradition, religious or otherwise, had ever hinted at the rescue of Pharaoh's body let alone mention its subsequent preservation. This account of the. Quran is unique also in the sense that it does not merely reveal some past events which were till then unknown to the rest of the world, but it also prophesises that the future 571