The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 91
PT. 16 ṬĀHĀ does this fact show that Moses was an Egyptian? Do not one people adopt the customs of another people? Could not the Israelites, during their stay in Egypt, have borrowed this practice from the Egyptians, particularly in view of the fact that the Israelites were a subject race and the subject race have a special liking for the ideas and practices of their rulers. In any case it is not a fact that the practice of circumcision was in vogue among the Egyptians alone. According to the Bible, in pursuance of God's command, Abraham had himself and his two sons Ishmael and Isaac circumcised and had made the observance of the rite of circumcision incumbent upon his posterity long before Moses was born (Gen. 17:11). This practice was also in vogue among the Arabs who never had good social relations with the Israelites and never had gone to Egypt. Even among the wild tribes of Africa and the aborigines of Australia circumcision is not unknown (Jew. Enc. vol. 4, p. 97 and "Tribes of Central Australia" by Spencer and Gillen, p. 323). The earliest traces of this practice among Egyptians are to be found in the 16th century B. C. (Jew. Enc. vol. 4, p. 97), when the Israelites had already been living there. It can, therefore, be safely inferred that, if at all, the practice was borrowed by the Egyptians from the Israelites and not by the Israelites from the Egyptians. The practice seems to have been introduced into Egypt by the Prophet Joseph who commanded great respect and prestige with Egyptian monarchs. CH. 20 Under his influence it must have become popular among the upper strata of Egyptian society as research scholars are of the view that this practice was much more in vogue among the upper sections of the Egyptian people to which Joseph himself belonged than among the poor classes. 4. Another argument that has been advanced in favour of Moses being an Egyptian is that like the teaching of Akhenaten no reference is to be found in the teachings of Moses about life after death. That this argument is quite weak and flimsy is clear from the fact that Akhenaten has left no book, no teaching and no community of followers from whom his views about life after death might be ascertained. Moreover, there are references to life after death in the teaching of Moses. The Bible says: "And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people" (Deut. 32:50) and "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Psalms 17:15). The misconception may have arisen from the absence of any marked emphasis on life after death in the Old Testament. This lack of stress might have been due to the fact that in the course of time the Old Testament had become subject to much interpolation and had been tampered with and many parts of it had been lost during the miseries and misfortunes that overtook the Israelites in the period of their dispersion and captivity. When, however, the Jewish scholars 2005