7. Al-A'raaf

And, remember, when We delivered you (anjaynākum: a variant reading has anjākum, ‘He delivered you’) from Pharaoh’s folk who were inflicting upon you, [who were] burdening you and making you taste, terrible chastisement, the worst kind [of chastisement], namely, slaying your sons and sparing, retaining, your women; and therein, [in that] deliverance or chastisement, was a tremendous trial, [either] a grace or a tribulation, from your Lord, so will you not heed the admonition and desist from what you are saying?

And We appointed (read wa-wā‘adnā or wa-wa‘adnā) for Moses thirty nights, at the end of which We would speak to him, after he has fasted [during that period]; that was the month of Dhū’l-Qa‘da. He completed the fast. But when it came to an end, he disliked the [bad] odour of his mouth and so cleaned his teeth. God then commanded him [to fast for] another ten nights so that He may speak to him despite the odour in his mouth: as God says, and completed them with ten, nights of Dhū’l-Hijja. Thus was the time appointed by his Lord concluded, the time at which God had promised him to speak to him, as forty (arba‘īna is a circumstantial qualifier) nights (laylatan is for specification); and Moses said to his brother Aaron, when he was departing to the Mount for the communion [with his Lord]: ‘Succeed me, be my deputy, over my people, and be righteous, [among them] with regard to their affair, and do not follow the way of the agents of corruption’, by consenting with them to acts of disobedience.

And when Moses came at Our appointed time, that is, the time at which We had promised to speak to him, and his Lord spoke with him, without any intermediary, with speech which he heard from all directions, he said, ‘My Lord! Show me, Yourself, that I may behold You!’ Said He, ‘You shall not see Me, that is to say, you do not have the power to see me, the use of this expression [lan tarānī, ‘you shall not see Me’] instead of lan urā, ‘I shall not be seen’, implies that it is possible to see God, exalted be He; but behold the mountain, which is stronger than you are, and if it remains, stays fixed, in its place, then you shall see Me’, that is, [then] you shall remain fixed [able] to see Me, otherwise, you will not have the capacity [for it]. And when his Lord revealed Himself, that is, [when] He manifested of His Light the equivalent of half a nail of a little finger, as stated in one hadīth verified by al-Hākim, to the mountain He levelled it to the ground (read dakkan or dakkā’a, meaning madkūkan) and Moses fell down senseless, having lost consciousness at the awesomeness of what he had seen. And when he recovered his senses he said, ‘Glory be to You!, in Your transcendence. I repent to You, for having asked You what I was not commanded [to ask], and I am the first of the believers’, of my time.

He, God, said, to him: ‘O Moses, I have elected you, chosen you, from among mankind, the people of your time, for My Messages (read plural, bi-risālātī, or singular, bi-risālatī, ‘for My Message’) and My Speech, that is, [for] My having spoken to you. So take what I have given you, of bounty, and be of the thankful’, of My favours.

And We inscribed for him in the Tablets, that is, the Tablets of the Torah — these were made from the Lote-tree of Paradise, or of chrysolite or emerald, and they were either seven or ten — about all things, one needs in religion, as an admonition and a detailing, an explanation, of all things (li-kulli shay’in substitutes for the previous genitive construction [min kulli shay’, ‘about all things’]). ‘Take it then (there is an implicit qulnā, ‘We said’, before this [fa-kudhhā, ‘take it then’]) firmly, seriously and earnestly, and enjoin your people to adhere to the fairest [precepts] in it. I shall show you the abode of the wicked, [of] Pharaoh and his followers, and that is Egypt, that you may take an example from them.

I shall turn away from My signs, the proofs of My power, in the way of creations and otherwise, those who behave arrogantly in the earth without right, by humiliating them so that they do not magnify themselves; and if they see every sign do not believe in it, and if they see the way, the path, of rectitude, the guidance that has come from God, do not adopt it as a way, to follow, and if they see the way of error, misguidance, adopt it as a way. That, turning [of them] away, is because they have denied Our signs and were heedless of them. A similar statement has been made above.

Those who deny Our signs and the encounter in the Hereafter, the Resurrection and so on. their works, the good deeds they performed in the world, such as the maintenance of kinship ties or voluntary almsgivings, have failed, are invalid, and will not be rewarded, since they are not binding [in this case]. Shall they, they shall not, be requited anything but, the requital [for], what they used to do?’, in the way of denial and acts of disobedience?

And the people of Moses, after him, that is, after he had departed for the communion [with God], made of their ornaments, which they had borrowed from Pharaoh’s folk on the pretext of a wedding celebration, and which remained in their possession, a calf, which the Samaritan had fashioned for them therefrom; a [mere] living body (jasadan is a substitution [for ‘ijlan, ‘a calf’]), of flesh and blood, which lowed, that is, [which] made audible sounds [like a cow]: it [the calf] was transformed in this way when the dust, which he [the Samaritan] had collected from [where] the hoof of Gabriel’s steed [had trodden], was placed in its mouth, for it has the effect of [giving] life to that in which it is placed (the second direct object of the verb ittakhadha, ‘[they] made’, has been omitted, but it would be ilāhan, ‘[as] a god’). Did they not see that it spoke not to them, nor guided them to any way?, so how can it be taken as a god? Yet they took it as such, a god, and were evildoers, for taking it so.

And when they became at a loss, that is, [when] they became remorseful for having worshipped it, and saw, [and] realised, that they had gone astray, thereby, and this was after Moses’s return [from the communion], they said, ‘Unless our Lord is merciful to us and forgives us (read both [verbs] either in the third person singular or in the second person singular), verily we shall be among the losers’.

And when Moses returned to his people, angry, because of them, and bitterly grieved, he said, to them: ‘Evil is that, that is, evil is the [manner of] succession, which you have followed in my place, after I had gone, this idolatry of yours. Would you hasten on the judgement of your Lord?’ And he cast down the Tablets, the Tablets of the Torah, angry for the sake of his Lord, and they were broken into pieces, and he seized his brother by the head, that is, by the hair, with his right hand, and [seized him] by the beard, with his left hand, dragging him toward him, in anger. He said, ‘O, son of my mother! (read either ibna ummi or ibna umma, by which he meant [the standard form of saying ‘my mother’] ummī: the mention of her is more affectionate [in appealing] to his heart), Truly the people judged me weak and they were close to killing me. Do not make my enemies gloat over my misfortune, to rejoice thereat, by your humiliating me, and do not count me among the folk who have done evil’, by worshipping the calf, in [your] reproach [of them].