Is it a fictitious story?
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And when your Lord called Moses ?Go to the people who are wicked.?
?The people of Pharaoh. Will they not be righteous??
He said ?My Lord, I fear that they would deny me.?
?And my chest would become tight, and my tongue would not be able to express; so send for Aaron.?
?And they have charges of a crime against me, so I fear they will kill me.?
He said ?It will not be. Go both of you with Our signs. I am with you listening.?
?So both of you go to Pharaoh and Say ?We are messengers of the Lord of the worlds?
?So send with us the Children of Israel??
He said ?Did we not raise you amongst us as a new born, and you stayed with us for many of your years??
?And you did what deed you did, and you are of the rejecters.?
He said ?I did it, and I was of those misguided.?
?So I ran away from you all when I feared you. So my Lord granted me judgment, and made me of the messengers.?
?And that was a favour that you held against me, so you could continue to enslave the Children of Israel.?
Pharaoh said ?And what is the Lord of the worlds??
He said ?The Lord of the heavens and the Earth and all that is between them, if you are aware.?
He said to those around him ?Do you hear that??
He said ?Your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers!?
He said ?This messenger of yours who has been sent to you is mad!?
He said ?The Lord of the east and the west, and what is between them, if you understand.?
He said ?If you take a god other than me, then I will put you among the prisoners.?
He said ?What if I brought you proof??
He said ?Then bring it forth if you are of the truthful ones.?
So he cast his staff, then it manifested into a serpent.
And he drew out his hand, then it became white to the onlookers.
He said to the commanders around him ?This is a knowledgeable magician.?
?He wants to bring you out of your land with his magic. So what will you decide??
They said ?Delay him and his brother, and send people in the cities to gather.?
?They will come to you with every knowledgeable magician.?
So the magicians were gathered to an appointed day.
And it was said to the people ?Will you also gather??
?Perhaps we can follow the magicians if they are the winners.?
So when the magicians came, they said to Pharaoh ?We should be rewarded if we are the winners.?
He said ?Yes, and you shall also be near to me.?
Moses said to them ?Cast down what it is you will cast.?
So they cast down their ropes and staffs and they said ?By the might of Pharaoh, we will be the winners.?
So Moses cast down his staff, then it was eating-up all that they showed!
So the magicians went down prostrating.
They said ?We believe in the lord of the worlds!?
?The Lord of Moses and Aaron.?
He said ?Have you believed to him before I permitted you? He is surely your great one who has taught you magic. So you shall come to know. I will cut-off your hands and feet from alternate sides, and I will crucify you all.?
They said ?There is no worry, for we are all returning to our Lord.?
?We hope that our Lord will forgive us our sins, as we are the first to believe.?
And We inspired Moses ?Take away My servants, for you will be followed.?
So Pharaoh sent gatherers to the cities.
?These are but a small band.?
?And they have done what has enraged us.?
?And We are all gathered and forewarned.?
So, We evicted them out of gardens and springs.
And treasures and an honourable dwelling.
As such, We gave it to the Children of Israel.
So they were pursued at sunrise.
But when the two groups saw each other, the companions of Moses said ?We are caught!?
He said ?No, my Lord is with me and He will guide me.?
So We inspired to Moses ?Strike the sea with your staff.? So it split into two, each side like a great mountain.
And We then brought them to the other side.
And We saved Moses and all those with him.
Then We drowned the others.
In that is a sign, but most of them are not believers.
And your Lord is the Noble, the Merciful.Is it a fictitious story related by God, the Wise, the Knower, the Creator or a chronicle of real/historical events?
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Peace
Both the sunnis (in hadith) and the jews (in thalmud) have a saying that someoone can invent a false story and narrate it as true so long as the wisdom in it is useful.
Now if you say that stories in the Quran are fictitious, it means they are not true, what is not true is a lie, are you calling God a liar?
Salam
Nabster -
Peace
Very perceptive of you nabster
I believe that each "story" in the quran has a very historically factual dimension that concludes with a moral lesson for us but also can have an element of an allegory to parallel a very deep and spiritual meaning, beyond the simple story-line (oppressor = Pharoah , minority opressed believers = bani israel). In God's Infinite Wisdom He was able to allow for layers upon layers of meaning in His message. Praise be to God.
Peace All
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peace
please try to understand me. I agree with soul2squeeze, except I think that it DOESN't MATTER whether they are historically accurate or not. Although I think that some stories aren't based real people but legends (like Solomon) which aren't correct. But I'm not debating that right now.
My point basically is this it doesn't matter what those stories are, because the Quran never tells us what they are. What matter is the lesson we extract from it, no matter how we get there.What is truth? truth is not facts. Truth is what guides us correctly, according to universal law. The quran can give us the truth any way it wants.
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phoenix1, do as u please, I wont carry your burden and you wont carry mine... I am done arguing, and The God forbids it anyway, especially falsehood...
Peace -
Peace,
I do believe the events are real, as some have to many details which are not directly connected with learning us wisdom but with explaining the circumstances of the prophets. The purpose of course that they are in the Quran, is because that we can learn from them, but at the same time to show us the real history, becaase we are indeed left with only legends from the historical accounts.
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With the clarity and vivacity in the language with which the incidents are narrated (there are many other instances in the Quran), it is very hard for me to take any allegorical interpretation of ?turning a stick into a serpent? or ?dividing of the sea followed by striking with the staff?. I find myself in an ?uneasy? situation in front of the people of general scientific attitude.
At the end of the ?story? God said, ?In that is a sign, but most of them are not believers.?
What is the sign here in the story?
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peace
Does Allah say that it is a chronicle of real/historical events? no.
Maybe it doesn't matter what it is. What matters is that in that story, there is a lesson for us to learn.
As salamu alaykum.
Respectfully.I agree.
This story with Moses and the pharaoh tells me of several things patience, firmness, endurance, belief, leadership, initiative, brotherhood.As salamu alaykum. jedi
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prashant_kumar, the sign you refer to is The God if He wants for something to be, He says be and it is...
He can locally or globally change the laws of physics if He so wills, and those were potent demonstrations of His abilities.
Of course he could have beamed out the Children of Israel from Pharaoh' clutches, or anything extraordinary you might think about.
He could also have stopped Christians and Muslims fighting, Muslims and Muslims fighting, all the wars we witnessed, or let us destroy ourselves in an apocalyptical nuclear winter (the latter can still come to pass, in the Quran we have no guarantee whatsoever it will not).
He does as He pleases according to a divine plan he gave us a glimpse of through the Quran.
Of course Scientists will never accept miracles unless they are believers, and in the capitalist atmosphere we live in, even those who do will never find the fundings to investigate them.
Besides miracles are not usually part of the Natural Laws, Allah uses them to demonstrate that having made the Laws Himself, He is not bound by them as we are, so even studying them might be pointless.
Nabster -
Thanks Alen and nabster and others.
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Peace
Besides miracles are not usually part of the Natural Laws, Allah uses them to demonstrate that having made the Laws Himself, He is not bound by them as we are, so even studying them might be pointless.
Excellent point! This reminds me of the Christian dogma which states that, God's Law that He decreed upon Himself was to punish His creation if they sinned, but He also has a Law upon Himself to be Merciful to His creation. In order to not break His first law, He came down in human form to be the human sacrifice and die for His creation's sins. Now if that wasn't confusing... -\
Anyway, very intuitive point you made
Peace All
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With the clarity and vivacity in the language with which the incidents are narrated (there are many other instances in the Quran), it is very hard for me to take any allegorical interpretation of ?turning a stick into a serpent? or ?dividing of the sea followed by striking with the staff?. I find myself in an ?uneasy? situation in front of the people of general scientific attitude.
At the end of the ?story? God said, ?In that is a sign, but most of them are not believers.?
What is the sign here in the story?
Peace prashant_kumar,
Do you really think Moses was a magician ?
Peace
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Hello JM
may I ask this question as a firm believer that the staff was turned into a snake and the sea was splitted with the will of Allah
of course he was not a magician, He was a messenger that Allah supported Him great deal, this support came on the form of miracles, exactly as it happned with many other prophets
so for you if to believe that by turning the staff into a snake is nothing but magic and can't happen according to the will of Allah "EXACTLY AS HE TOLD US", then Jesus for you must be a magician as well, right?
Cheers
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Peace Ahmed,
I have 2 questions for you
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Why did God not help Muhammad by some magical trick, like pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat, or something like that ?
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How do you explain the following verse
He said ?No, you cast down.? So their ropes and staffs appeared from their magic as if they were moving. And Moses held some fear in himself. We said ?Do not fear, you will best them.? ?And cast down what is in your right hand it will consume what they have made. They have only made the work of a magician, and the magician will not succeed no matter what he does.?
- How did the magicians of Pharaoh manage to make their ropes and staffs appear like they were moving ?
- How did Moses do in to have what their have made have consumed ?
Peace
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peace
Altso, turning a snake into a stick and reverse the effect, is kindergarden magic for absolute beginners in the craft. A magician who doesnt know the snake to stick trick is no magician at all. So why does Moses chose to try and impress with a trick that all the magicians of pharao knew by heart?