Bilal Assad – The story of Moses – PBUH
AI: Summary ©
The transcript describes a series of statements and phrases, including references to the word "has," and a series of negative responses. The speakers do not provide context or answers to these statements.
AI: Summary ©
My brothers and sisters, salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi
wa barakatuhu.
Forgive me, I'm wearing the sunglasses because I'm
actually live here in Egypt in front of
the pyramids and the sun's shining in my
eyes, so I had to wear the sunglasses.
I want to share with you a summary
of the story of Prophet Moses, Musa alayhi
salam, and his brother Aaron, the prophets, the
two messengers of Allah, as the account is
told to us in the Quran and through
the Islamic beliefs.
The story begins with the pharaoh, whom we
don't know his true name, and in fact
in the Quran he's mentioned in a singular
noun, so perhaps his name was actually Pharaoh,
but maybe the term was his name and
also a title for the kings of Egypt.
Allah knows best.
This particular king among all the pharaohs was
the one who was the greatest enemy of
Allah, as stated in the Quran, and he
was the one who enslaved the children of
Israel.
The children of Israel are the ones who
belong to the great prophets and messengers, Yaqub,
Jacob alayhi salam, his son Yusuf alayhi salam,
and also his children, and so on.
So in Islam when we say the children
of Israel, we mean the children of the
progeny of the prophet Yaqub alayhi salam, and
among them was prophet Yusuf alayhi salam, who
was also an Israelite.
So when we say Israelite, we don't mean
the Israel of today, we mean ancient, historical
lineage of the great prophets, the messengers, and
they were people who we respect tremendously, the
children of Israel mentioned in the Quran and
referred to.
Of course they changed later on into different
types of beliefs and systems until Muhammad alayhi
salam came along.
The prophet Moses, Musa alayhi salam, is among
the greatest of all prophets and messengers in
our religion.
In fact we call him among the five
most enduring and most important of messengers, ulil
azm.
He was only not even born yet, when
the actual pharaoh, who was a tyrant enslaving
the children of Israel, Allah says in the
Quran that pharaoh had become a great tyrant
in the land, and he took himself above
what he is supposed to be, turning people
into factions, making people into hierarchies.
These are important, these are middle, the other
ones are not important, and he put the
children of Israel right at the bottom.
They were the people who came from prophet
Joseph, and it seems that the Coptics they
were, the original people, Egyptians of this land
who belonged to the pharaohs, that they had
turned this into a nationalistic type of ideology,
and so the children of Israel with all
their sophistication and their knowledge, they put them
right at the bottom and in fact enslaved
them so that they may not rise any
time again.
It says in the traditions of the Torah
that the pharaoh saw a dream that some
child or someone is going to ruin his
kingdom, and he went and asked the fortune
tellers or the sages or whatever you call
them, the people who interpret dreams for him,
and they told him that a newborn is
going to be born from the children of
Israel who will grow up to destroy his
kingdom.
The Qur'an doesn't say that he had
a dream, it doesn't say that a newborn
is going to be born from the children
of Israel who will ruin his kingdom, not
in that way, but these are legends of
the past traditions of the Torah.
The Qur'an talks about however that pharaoh
did kill a lot of the males of
the children of Israel, and he left their
women and females in the hope that they
may marry from the Copts or the Egyptians,
and they will become Egyptians themselves and turn
them into a different race.
That's the main reason we get from the
Qur'an of why he began to kill
the males.
Nevertheless, Allah tells us the story that his
mother was inspired, that the angel Jibril told
her in a dream that when your child
is born, when the time comes and close
to the danger, to put him in a
basket and let him go into the Nile
River, and that Allah swt promised her that
he will return her son to her in
some way.
This is very divine, and this is something
which only the Qur'an speaks about, that
he will return him to his mother and
he will be suckled from his mother.
When he was born, she waited, and all
the newborns and the babies were being killed,
the male ones, and then in about two
months or three months approximately, the danger came
to her house.
There's a long story to it, but to
cut the story short, she put him in
a basket and prepared it and made it
very tightly sealed so the water doesn't get
in, and then she put it into the
Nile River.
The Qur'an says that her heart became
empty.
What does it mean?
When a person's heart is so much in
fear that even the emotions are lost.
So this is the feeling that mothers generally
get, obviously.
They can only describe when mothers lose their
baby or their child.
And she told her other daughter, his sister,
she was only about 12 years old or
so, to follow the basket and to watch
where it goes, but make herself like as
if she doesn't know who that baby is.
And this very cunning and intelligent young girl
at the age of 12 followed the basket
and acted like she was just walking around.
As the basket went, it travelled until the
people, the nobles of the Egyptians noticed it
and they took it and according to the
king, they were going to kill the baby.
But Allah says in the Qur'an that
he made to Moses a special love in
the hearts of people.
He says, Allah says, And
this was actually a miracle.
When they grabbed the baby, even those people
who grabbed them, while knowing it's from the
children of Israel, their hearts opened to that
baby and they couldn't kill it.
And the one who actually made the decision
was the wife of Pharaoh.
In the Qur'anic tradition, it was his
wife, not his daughter, who grabbed the basket
and she said to Pharaoh, And it
says that even Pharaoh himself felt some kindness
to the baby.
And Allah said, He said to his mother,
Subhanallah, they raised Moses from the children of
Israel, whom they feared to be the one
that will finally carry out the command of
Allah.
This is also a miracle.
And by the way, Moses is a Coptic
word.
To mean Mo, Mo means water and Oshe
means rescue.
So the one who was rescued from the
river.
His name was actually Egyptian, not Israelite.
He couldn't suckle from anybody.
And then they returned him.
The sister said, I will show you someone
who will breastfeed.
And they are very cheap.
Cheap as in they don't charge too much.
And so they went around until finally the
mother of Moses was breastfeeding him.
And he took her milk only and no
other woman.
And this is how Allah returned him back
to his mother.
And he was raised among them, learning about
Allah, learning about his brother Aaron, learning about
his sister and who his lineage is really
from, while being raised with the Egyptians.
Finally, we all know the story that one
time Moses, who was called by his relative,
and an Egyptian man was fighting with him
over something.
So he went up to protect him.
And all he did was he just poked,
literally a small poke or a jab, a
little jab to that Israelite man, not knowing
his strength.
He immediately killed him from a jab.
He died.
And then he got scared.
Someone said to him, run away.
The people are after you.
They're going to kill you.
You killed the person from the Israelites.
The next day, as he was trying to
watch out for who's after him, he saw
his same relative having a fight with another
Israelite.
And he said, oh, Moses, come and help
me, come and help me.
And that's when Moses realized that he's a
mischief, that his cousin or his relative is
a troublemaker.
He says, you are truly a person who
is clearly trying to make trouble.
So when he refused to help him, his
own relative threw him under the bus.
And he said, oh, do you want to
then kill me?
So he gaslighted him.
He said to him, oh, you rejected to
help me.
Are you going to kill me like you
killed the man yesterday from the Israelites?
Meaning he's threatening him in an indirect way,
that I will expose you if you don't
come and help me.
And so Moses ran away from him.
And an advisor came from the Israelites saying
to him, run away.
They're going to kill you.
And that's how he ran away from Egypt
to the place called the waters of Median.
Cutting the story short, he saw two young
ladies trying to help, trying to feed their
own sheep.
And there was a big rock, which only
men were around.
So he went and asked these young ladies,
what's your story?
And they said that we want to feed
our sheep, but these men are around and
our father is an old man.
We don't have any other males to help
out.
So this is why we're out here needing
to work.
So he went and helped them and gave
all their sheep water.
And then Allah says, He went back into
the shade of the trees.
And then he said, Oh my Lord, I
am in need of your provision.
I am poor and I'm in need of
your blessings.
And so Allah returned one of these girls
back to him and said, my father wants
to give you a reward for helping us.
So he went there and the father, we
don't know if he was a prophet, but
he was a righteous man.
It is said that he was the prophet
Shu'ayb.
Allah only knows best, but we cannot say
for certain.
It was a righteous man who said to
him, I will let you marry one of
my daughters.
Obviously, he knew that they were interested in
him and especially one of his daughters was
interested in him.
And the father was very smart about that.
He said, and in exchange for you to
serve us for 10 years.
So he said, I can do eight years.
And he chose one of them and married
her and became his son-in-law.
They had a child and after the eight
years they left.
On his way, he was going to settle
somewhere.
They saw a little fire up in the
mountains.
And he said to his family that we're
lost.
We don't know our way.
Let me go to that flame over there
and see if we can find help and
direction.
So he went into the mountain.
It was Mount Sinai.
And in that, or in Arabic, it's also
called Jabal al-Tur.
He went into that mountain and Allah says
that as he entered, he saw a flame
of fire burning from the right side of
where he entered.
He entered into kind of like a very
closed off place inside that mountain.
Almost like a little cave, but with nothing
above it.
And from the right, he saw a little
tree that was growing in the hollow ground.
And he heard someone calling out to him.
Something, someone calling out to him.
And it was Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
himself.
He says, Ya Musa, you are in the
blessed sacred place of Tur.
So take off your shoes for this is
a sacred place.
And I have chosen you.
So come and listen to my command.
He approached closer to that tree.
And Allah had spoken to him through that
tree in a way that only Allah knows.
And we all know the story.
He said to him, you must go back
to Pharaoh and save and take out the
children of Israel from enslavement and called him
to worship God alone.
He said, my, he said, Oh my Lord,
I fear that they're going to kill me.
So send with me my brother Aaron and
make him a supporter and make him a
messenger with me.
And in another verse, he says, Oh my
Lord, I fear that they're going to say
I'm a liar.
And when I fear that, I get anxiety
and I get claustrophobia.
And then my tongue gets twisted and I'm
not able to speak.
Subhanallah.
He starts to stutter.
He's not able to speak from claustrophobia, from
anxiety.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said to
him, don't worry.
I will be your support all the way.
And Aaron will be your messenger along with
you and your support.
For he spoke very well.
He was very eloquent, Aaron.
And Musa alayhi salam, knowing that he is
a higher messenger than Aaron, yet he said,
let my brother go with me as a
support.
He speaks better than me, which shows that
our talents are different.
And just because someone's talent is better than
another, it doesn't mean that we, that that
person is better than another person.
And at the same time, people help each
other.
He said to him, put your hand in
your pocket and release it.
And his hand became white, almost with nur,
with light emanating from it.
And he said to him, throw your stick
on the ground.
He threw it on the ground and he
could see that it turned into a big
python, a big snake.
And he says that Moses ran away from
his stick.
He ran away from it while Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is speaking to him.
And that's the nature of human beings.
We get scared.
And Allah said to him, oh Moses, come
back.
Don't fear.
Grab the snake and it turned back into
a staff.
He said, these are your two signs to
go to Pharaoh.
Now go.
So he went.
And in summary, he arrived at Pharaoh.
And Pharaoh recognized him.
And said to him, did we not raise
you when you were a child and support
you?
And, you know, in the end you killed
a soul.
Don't you think about that of your words?
And he said to him, oh Pharaoh, we
have come to you from your lord, Allah.
And he has called you to worship him
and to stop what you are doing and
your injustice and stop putting people into factions
and return my people with me, the children
of Israel.
Allow them to be free from your enslavement.
The story goes on.
We all know it.
And Pharaoh became very arrogant.
He gathered his viziers and he gathered all
his people.
And among them was his special vizier, Haman.
And he said to him, yeah, Haman.
He started becoming very sarcastic and full of
arrogance.
Oh, Haman, go and build me a high
tower and make rocks made out of clay
and make them very high so that I
may rise to the aboveness to look at
this so-called God of Moses and so
that I may see if he is telling
me the truth.
Obviously he knew that God was not just
up there by climbing up a tower.
But just like today, you know, in modern
times you see people, for example, saying we've
been to the moon, we've gone to Mars,
we've gone to the far places of the
galaxies and we don't see a God.
These people think that somehow, I don't know
how they thought that by proving God means
that you've got to go up into the
sky and you see him there.
There is no truth to that.
Anyway, he was being sarcastic and the story
goes on where Moses came in and he
showed them the miracles of his hand and
the staff.
And Pharaoh said to him, we will bring
magicians to override you.
You're trying to take our people and our
land and become a God instead of me.
No, no, no.
Anyway, he called his magicians and the story
goes on by saying that the magicians, they
thought that Moses was doing magic.
So they all threw their staff on the
floor.
And Moses was very cunning and smart.
He said, bring everyone on a day of
celebration, a special day of celebration.
Bring them all for a day of celebration
to watch.
He wanted to prove to everybody.
And this is how you work with proving
evidence, not just to people privately, but to
the world.
And that's why social media is a good
place to speak about truth and justice.
They said, would you like to throw your
staff or we throw it?
And then he said to them, no, you
throw your staffs, the magicians.
When they threw it, Moses was hypnotized.
It was a kind of sorcery of hypnosis.
He could see their staff as if they
were slithering like snakes.
He got scared.
And then Allah said to Moses, Allah used
to speak directly to Moses and sometimes through
the angel Gabriel.
He said to him, the angel Gabriel, don't
be afraid.
Throw your staff and you will be superior
and overcome them.
So he threw his staff and his staff
turned into a real snake.
And then it looked like it was eating
the rest of the snakes.
The people's hypnosis failed.
And when the hypnosis went away and Moses'
miracle made their eyes see the truth, they
could see that they were only sticks.
And the magicians knew that this was not
sorcery.
They immediately fell to the ground and prostrated
to Allah.
And they said, oh Moses, we please ask
your Lord to forgive us.
We now believe in the Lord of Moses,
everyone.
The magicians knew.
So when you talk to people who know
their art, these people know especially if you
are lying or not.
When Pharaoh knew that the magicians had turned
their religion into the belief of the religion
of Moses, he became infuriated and he thought
he was going to lose his kingdom.
So in front of everybody he said, bring
them and tie them to the trees and
cut them limb to limb until they know
who their true God is.
They brought these magicians and tied them to
trees and they started to cut them up
limb by limb.
And you know what the magicians did, subhanAllah,
because they knew the truth at that point.
They said, oh Pharaoh, you can only torture
us in this world and oppress us.
But the hereafter you have no possession over
it.
We have believed in the Lord of Moses,
so do whatever you want.
And they were martyrs, subhanAllah, the magicians, how
they turned.
And it shows no matter how far you
go in life and how bad you become,
Allah subhanAllah will always welcome you and welcome
you back when you believe in Him.
And Allah forgives all sins, subhanAllah.
This is the story of the magicians.
The story goes on that Allah subhanAllah sent
him at least nine miracles and signs to
Pharaoh to release the children of Israel.
He sent him such as frogs everywhere in
their homes, in their pottery, in their beds,
everything.
They turned the Nile into blood.
Whenever they come to take water from the
Nile, it turned into blood.
The nits and lice went into their hair,
in their beds, in their children, everywhere.
And every time Moses would come back and
Pharaoh would say, ask your Lord to release,
subhanAllah, he would say, ask your Lord.
Because they believed in deities, many, many different
gods.
And Pharaoh believed he was God incarnate himself,
so he was one of the deities.
That's why he says, I do not know
any other God but me, meaning no other
sovereign, no other Lord that has the power
to command you.
Although they believed in many, many gods as
we can see from the hieroglyphics.
And he said, ask your Lord to release
me.
And so every time the miracles would go,
another one would come back.
And Pharaoh would go again and lie again
and lie again.
Until finally, after the ninth miracle, there was
a plague and there was a lot of
other things.
Until finally he said, okay, I will release
them.
And so he released the children of Israel,
but he was only, it was only a
tactic.
Moses and Harun, alayhim assalam, they took the
children of Israel and they released them.
There were more than 70,000, more, more,
more.
Allah only knows, maybe hundreds of thousands who
followed Moses.
And they went until they reached a sea.
It is said, we don't know what sea
it is in the Quran, but it is
most likely the Red Sea.
According to the biblical narrations and also the
words of the great, the companions and our
Prophet, alayhim assalam, it seems like it's the
Red Sea.
When they reached the Red Sea, they found
that the Pharaoh had lied to them.
And he took all his soldiers and followed
them to kill them at the Red Sea.
It was a massacre, it was going to
be a massacre to gather them in one
little place and to destroy them all.
And he even used words like, these are
all extremists in their own language.
Moses is the leader of the extremists.
In today's terms, you might say terrorists.
You might say words of fundamentalists or whatever
you want to call.
If you want to annihilate someone, call them
bad names and make the whole world think
that they are evil.
And that's exactly what Pharaoh did to the
children of Israel.
He said, they are evil.
They want to take over your land.
They want to take your beliefs.
And this Moses wants to do this and
that.
So when he followed them right at the
Red Sea, they said, oh, Moses, the people,
he has followed us, about to get us.
Where is the promise of God?
And Allah said to him, hit the sea
with your staff.
And so he hit the sea with his
staff and the sea opened up.
Allah says this in the Quran, like two
big mountains.
And he ordered them to go through.
They all went through, as you all know,
the same story.
And then Pharaoh went in with his soldiers
and then suddenly the sea closed on them.
And Pharaoh and his soldiers with her, Maniz
Vizia, all perished in the sea and drowned.
Pharaoh, while he was drowning, he said, our
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tells us this.
That Pharaoh said while he was drowning, I
believe in the Lord of Moses and the
Lord of Aaron.
And the Prophet, peace be upon him, tells
us that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
this is actually in the Quran.
It's actually in the Quran.
It says, I believe in the Lord of
Moses and Aaron.
Allah says, Now you want to believe while
you were an arrogant disbeliever in the beginning.
Instead of accepting your belief and your repentance,
we will save your body so that you
may be a sign for people who come
later on.
Why didn't Allah accept his repentance?
Because repentance is not accepted when the soul
reaches the gargling point.
He had reached the end of his death
and he was trying to do a trick.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said to
him, we'll save your body.
Inshallah, we'll finish the story another time.
I hope you enjoyed this little summary.
Please make dua for our brothers and sisters
in Palestine and everywhere around the world.
We are here on a tour, inshallah, with
MATW to help the Palestinian refugees and other
orphans who are in Egypt.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept your
donations and your dua.
Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.