The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 578
CH. 7 AL-A'RĀF mean that the rod necessarily turned into a small serpent but that it only moved quickly like a small serpent, though it may have been a large serpent. So the different words used by the Quran do not conflict with each other, whether the rod be taken as turning into a small serpent or a large one. we It should also be noted here that this miracle did not really contradict any law of nature. If the existence of a thing is proved beyond doubt, it must be admitted, even if we are unable to explain it in the light of the laws of nature, as we know them. Our knowledge of the laws of nature is evidently very limited and so cannot deny a fact on the basis of our limited and imperfect knowledge. Moreover, the said miracle did not take place in the manner in which it is popularly understood to have occurred. Indeed, miracles shown by God's Prophets are not like the performance of jugglers. They are meant to serve some great moral or spiritual purpose. One of their primary objects is to bring about certainty of faith and engender feelings of piety and fear of God in the minds of those who witness them. If the rod had actually turned into a serpent, the whole performance must have looked more like the hand-tricks of a juggler than the miracle of a Prophet. In spite of what the Bible might say about this miracle, the Quran lends no support whatever to the view that the rod actually turned into a real and living serpent. No such thing ever took place. The rod only appeared like a moving serpent. It PT. 9 was a sort of a vision in which God either exercised special control over the sight of the onlookers in order to make them see the rod in the form of a serpent or the rod itself was made to appear like a serpent; and this vision was shared by Pharaoh and his courtiers and the enchanters along with Moses. The rod remained a rod, only it appeared to Moses and others a serpent. It is a spiritual phenomenon of common occurrence that in a vision when man rises above the encumbrances of the flesh and as becomes temporarily transported to a spiritual sphere, he can see things taking place which are beyond his ken and are quite invisible to his physical eyes. The miracle of the rod turning into a serpent was one such spiritual experience. 1018 A similar spiritual phenomenon took place when in the time of the Holy Prophet the moon was seen as rent asunder not only by the Holy Prophet but by some of his followers and opponents as well (Bukhārī, ch. on Tafsir). Such visions, which constitute peculiar state between sleep and wakefulness, are a common spiritual Prophets sometimes experience of God's and His Elect, but they are shared by ordinary men and by even disbelievers. Tradition tells us that Gabriel whom the Holy Prophet often saw in his visions, was also once seen by his Companions, who were sitting with him (Bukhārī, ch. on Iman). Similarly, some angels were seen even by some of the disbelievers at the Battle of Badr (Jarīr, vi. 47). Another instance of this