The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 139
PT. 1 AL-BAQARAH childhood, cut off from his own people and was reared in Pharaoh's house, it was not unnatural for Pharaoh's daughter, herself an Egyptian, to give him a name of her own liking. But, as pointed out above, the fact is that Moses is a Hebrew name and Pharaoh's daughter, if indeed it were she who gave him that name was name, must have certainly been influenced to give the child a Hebrew name, thinking that he belonged to the Israelite people. It is probable, however, that the suggested by the sister of Moses herself who was personally known to the household of Pharaoh, being present at the time when Pharaoh's daughter picked up the lad from the river (Exod. 2:7; Quran, 28:9-13). But there is absolutely no ground for accepting the view that Moses was not an Israelite or that the children of Israel never settled in Egypt. The idea is repugnant to all established facts and runs counter to the accepted history of the Jewish people and to the Bible and the Quran, both giving the lie to it. Among the arguments Western critics have advanced in support of their view, two appear to be the more noteworthy. One is that ( (Moses) is an Egyptian name occurring in many combinations of that language e. g. , Amenmesse, Ahmosi, Thotmes, Ramose, etc. the last-mentioned being the same as Rameses, the name of the Pharaoh in whose time Moses lived. Though a deeper study of these words would indicate that these Egyptian names are really different from the Hebrew or Arabic word discussed 139 CH. 2 above, yet even if we admit the name Moses to be of Egyptian origin, there is no justification for assuming that the man Moses was not Israelite but Egyptian by birth. As Israelites were a subject people in Egypt, living under the rule of the Pharaohs, it is no wonder if they adopted some of the Egyptian names of the ruling class, just as in India many Indians are fond of, and actually adopt, English موسی names. But, as shown above, the fact remains that is a Hebrew name, having definite derivation in both Hebrew and Arabic. The second argument advanced by these critics is that the idea of God's Oneness is originally Egyptian, having been first conceived and adopted by an ancient Egyptian king named Amenhotep IV who came to the throne in 1375 B. C. and passed away about 1358 B. C. when probably not 30 years of age. Later he gave himself the title of Ikhnaton (or Akhenaton) which means "the servant of the one God". This, these critics allege, shows that Moses was an Egyptian who borrowed the idea of God's Oneness from Ikhnaton and then preached it among the Israelites. The inference is simply absurd. In the first place, it is against all reason to suppose that a certain conception is the monopoly of one people only. More than one people may independently form similar ideas without having borrowed them from one another. Secondly, even supposing that the idea of God's unity is of Egyptian origin, there is no justification for the inference that