Moses and the Red Sea

So I want everybody

Hello and welcome to everybody for coming in this blizzard.

They call it the beast from the east. We didn't know that I was coming right.

But in any case, just as a reminder, I'm My name is Hasib. I'm a graduate in finished my studies in Islamic law. My specialties also are history, early Islamic history as well as Islamic history in general, as well as jurisprudence hold onic hermeneutics or explanation as well as Heidi, and today's topic. First of all, I'd like to thank Keele University ISOC for inviting us, as well as, like Media TV for putting this together. It's it's actually an honor to be here in front of everybody in this beautiful city, which is on top of the hill looks like Roman like pentathol or something like that. But it's, uh, obviously, I want to thank all of you for attending. So today's

topic is with regards to Moses and the Red Sea, the Islamic edition or the Muslim narrative. Now, there's a disclaimer that I'd like to make, which we have been making pretty much with the rest of all the prophets that we talked about with regards to the Muslim narrative versus the biblical or the Judeo Christian narrative. And that is that the Muslim narrative, in fact is that there is only one narrative. Muslims believe that all of the prophets and messages that were sent were sent by God to preserve the one faith that he sends to humanity. So we believe that there is only one God and Creator, and he wanted to send a revelation to humanity. And he did this through prophets and

messengers. These were divinely ordained, but they were not divine in and of themselves, meaning they were human beings, and they had faculties just like normal human beings. Rather, the only thing that differentiated them from others is that they were chosen by God and God communicated to them revelation to teach mankind what their purpose and existence is for. And we believe that the first of them is to was our father Adam, and through Adam.

Subsequent prophets and messengers came, so Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, David, Solomon, etc, culminating with the final prophet and messenger sent to humanity, Mohammed, peace be upon them all. So this is the Muslim narrative. We believe that all of them came from divinely sent or ordained, prophets and messengers that were given revelation from the Creator. This is the Muslim narrative. So we don't believe there's a separation between the Muslim there and the Christian narrative and the Jewish narrative. Rather, we believe there's only one narrative to begin with. And this is very important to understand, because many people assume that Islam is a separation from the Abrahamic

faith from the Christian faith from the Jewish faith. This is not what it what the Muslims believe at all. In fact, we believe that because the revelation that God sent to humanity was corrupted. Therefore, God needed to send subsequent prophets and messengers with revelation thereafter. So this is something that Muslims believe in the narrative that we're going to discuss that I want you to keep in mind. So because the children of Israel corrupted the message that was sent to them, God then sent Moses with the revelation known as the Torah. And then subsequently, thereafter, continuing after this evil narrative that were done, because that message was corrupted God sent

Jesus to bring about the message of pure faith in one God without any partner to humanity. And because that message was corrupted, God sent the final messenger, which all of the messengers previously prophesized including Jesus, which is the Prophet Mohammed, to preserve the final message, which will be the message to worship one God and Creator, this is the Muslim narrative. Now, we're going to discuss that narrative in context of the Prophet Moses, peace be upon him. Now, Moses, first of all, who was he in? What is the Muslim discussion regarding? He's been mentioned over 115 times in the Quran, he is the single personality that has been mentioned the most in the

entire Quran even more than the Prophet Mohammed by name, by name. Now, that does not mean that the problem humbler was not mentioned more, in fact, he was because God spoke to Mohammed directly. So therefore, you could say indirectly, obviously, the Prophet Muhammad has been mentioned more but as a name and a personality, and a person that God discusses the most and his story the most was Moses. And there's reasons for that. He's been mentioned in over 30 out of the 114 chapters of the whole on, to the extent some of the explainers of the Quran when they come to discuss the story of Moses. They say the Quran was almost entirely the story of

Moses and for us to learn lessons from them. Why God wanted us to learn lessons from the life of Moses, and the corruption that happened in the religion that God sent to humanity. Therefore, he was used as an example, to show the Prophet Mohammed, what his nation would follow and what humanity would follow out of rejecting the message. And what would be some of the reasons why people reject the revelation God sent to humanity, you will see in the story of Moses. And secondly, to affirm that the Prophet Muhammad is the same chain of Prophet is in the same chain of the prophets and messengers that were sent to humanity, in order to preserve the faith God sent to humanity, the one

faith to believe in one God and one creator. So Moses, first of all his name, we know him in English as Moses, but that, in fact, is not even his name. He was never called Moses. Right? That's the English that was translated from the Greek translated from the Hebrew. And that's where the Judeo Christian narrative stops. They say that he got his name from the Hebrew and the, the Judeo tradition also differentiates his name. Further along, they say they have a difference of opinion, saying that the daughter of Pharaoh instead of his wife, in the in the Muslim narrative, the wife of Pharaoh is the one who found Moses

and the Judeo narrative, it was not his wife, it was the daughter of Pharaoh who found Moses. In any case,

when Moses was found, he was found in the river Nile, which which God sent a divine GPS to go straight to the pharaohs castles. And when he arrived there, he was in a basket, right? So when they found him, they picked him up. So they said that his name was Moshi.

Moshi. Which means that Hebrew one who was saved from water, and then the Bible, or the Torah specifically mentions, I drew him out of mushy tea who have the water, which means I drew him from water, one would say from water, so they called him Moshi. Which means one who saved from water. Now, interestingly enough, there's a question to be had, even amongst Judeo tradition, was the daughter or the wife of Pharaoh, Hebrew to begin with? Was she Jewish? What's the answer? What do you think?

What's your Jewish? Does she know Hebrew?

No, yes.

What do you think? No good. Well, she was Egyptian. She spoke old Egyptian. So how did she speak Hebrew and name human, a Hebrew name. Then they say, Well, she learned Hebrew. And therefore, because she knew that this child may be Hebrew, she named him after this Hebrew name. Well, the Muslim narrative, obviously is separate from that. In fact, Muslim scholars, they say that, in fact, because she was Egyptian, his name came from old Egyptian, and an old Egyptian, they found because of obviously the hieroglyphics that have been studied, and they studied the entire language of old Egyptian that is left, they found out that in fact, his name was mousset

musei, which means or the way they put it in the prefix and conjugated is the one that was taken as a son, the one that was taken as a son. So they say in Arabic, and the old Egyptian how they translate in Arabic is musei. And this is a translation literally, of what the Quran says his name was Musa. And a narrations of the Quran in recitation musei. Literally. So the Quran preserved the name of Moses, the way

it was said and the way his name was just like they preserved the name of Jesus, Jesus was 100%, not the name of Jesus. Right? And Moses was not 100%, not the name of Moses. Rather, it's become popularized in English, and the language that we will know. So I was gonna say we call him Moosa From now on, and that's what we're gonna do. His name was mousset. So why the story of musei so often? Why is it mentioned so many times in the hold on and in the Muslim narrative? So God says in the Quran, that faith was sent to all prophets and messengers with one message, to worship one God, the Creator, that all that exists. So the prophets were divinely ordained with this one message, God

says, We sent a messenger to every people saying worship God and son, false deities. Among them are those whom God guided, and other people misguidance to hold hold of them. So travel through the earth and observe what was the fate of those who denied the truth, God says, and he also says, the messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, and so do the believers. All of the all of them.

Believe in God and His angels and his books and his messengers say, we make no distinction between any of his messengers. All of the messengers came with one faith. And they say, we hear and we obey, we seek your forgiveness, our Lord, and to use the final destination.

God says, These are the revelations of God, which we recite to you, Mohammed was the truth. And you are the you are truly one of the messengers, we favored some of these messengers above others, God spoke to some of them and others he raised in rank, we gave Jesus the son of Mary, are clear signs and strengthen him with the Holy Spirit. Now, out of all of the prophets, there were some that were chosen above others, and then were used as the prime examples to all of humanity, for example, like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, peace be upon them. Now, a little bit of history before we actually go into the entire story of Moses, for you to understand what the big deal is

about Moses in the first place. Why Moses? So the children of Israel, were, Who were they? They were the tribe of Moosa. Right. musei, right. And the head of that tribe or the, the forefather of that tribe was Abraham, Abraham, Abraham had two sons. What were the two sons names?

No cheating. are the two sons names.

Huh? I thank you, Isaac in Israel. I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Isaac, and Ishmael. All right. Isaac, had a son, what was his name?

Jacob, thank you. Right. Jacob had how many sons? Wrong?

1212 sons, right. And Jacob also had another name, what was his name? What was the other name of Jacob?

Good Israel, Israel, Israel. So they were called the children of Israel. And these 12 tribes were known to be the progeny of Israel known as Jacob. Okay. He had a son named Joseph, which was one of those these 12 sons. He was the head of the famous story where there were his brothers got

envious of him and threw him in a well, you know, the rest of the story. And later on their progeny came from them, David, from the children of Israel. David does what he kills Goliath. They take over cannon, and the Holy Land, they established the kingdom of Israel. And then he has a son, what was his name?

Solomon, thank you. Right. So Solomon was another king of the kingdom of Israel. And later on after that, came,

Moses, Moses came after that. And these are among the prophets that were mentioned in the whole on as being prophets of God, which preserved the religion that God sent to humanity. And among them, as you all know,

from Moses, to Solomon, to David, to Joseph, to Jacob, they were all from the progeny of who?

Abraham But Abraham, son, Moses named

Isaac, thank you. Thank you so much, Isaac. And none of the progeny from Ishmael were chosen prophets except one. And that is Muhammad peace be upon him. He is the only one that came from the progeny of Ishmael to be a prophet. And that is proven even in the Bible, of the lineage that is mentioned in Genesis. Among those that lead all the way to the progeny of Abraham through Ishmael is the forefather that has mentioned in the bible called Kadar, and the Prophet Mohammed has lineage directly to that particular individual. So this is the entire setup of all these prophets and messengers. The Prophet Mohammed said that all prophets are paternal brothers with different

mothers. So Moses, now we're hearing Moses now. Okay, Moses and Jesus were sent to people that represent currently now, the vast majority of humanity, and hence their story, and their mentioned are so numerous. This is from among the wisdoms. This is wrong, the wisdoms of why they're mentioned is so much because the vast majority humanity has accepted either Christianity, Judaism or the Abrahamic religion. Moses was sent to the children of Israel, and called them back to the Abrahamic monotheism. Jesus was sent to remind them of this, and he didn't come with a new law, he came with reforms, and to affirm them the law of God which was sent through Moses. The message was corrupted.

The message that God said to Moses and Jesus were crafted by the hands of man, people change the revelation for worldly gain. So God sent the final messenger, we've already discussed this. So Moses was chosen by God to deliver justice to the children of Israel. And at that time, as you all know, a tyrannical oppressive tyrant King, known as Pharaoh took over the children of Israel and he had

It wasn't him. But the pharaohs of that time, took the children of Israel as slaves. Why? Because they felt that they had grown. And they felt that they were going to be a threat to their kingdom. Therefore, they took them as slaves. And Moses grew into slavery. And the same story falls in the biblical tradition with some minor tweaks. And that is that Pharaoh saw in his dream, that he would be killed by a young man, or a young child that grew in His Kingdom. And that man would be the one who killed him. So what is he? What does he interpret this as, as the children of Israel going to rise up against him? So he commands that all children, boys be slaughtered from the children of

Israel? And what does his mother do? His mother takes him in order to preserve them, and throws him in, in the,

in the river Nile, and she trusts in God and God narrates the entire narrative of how Moses was saved. And as you heard, he was saved and through divine GPS by being led to the castle of Pharaoh himself. So literally, what would happen in the dream of Pharaoh literally took place, as this young child was delivered to him, he grew up in that household, as you all know, musei. And he became one of the right hand men of Pharaoh as his adopted son, what musei means adopted son. And as he grew up, he saw the oppression that

Pharaoh was committing against the children of Israel, and he tries to defend one man as it affects him, and he punches him and he kills that man out of the severity of his punch, he realizes that he committed a crime, so he runs away. And when he runs away, he settles in a tribe node met known as madya. And both in the Bible as well as in the Quranic narrative. And when he settles in this area, he's tired, he sees two girls, two young ladies trying to get water for their flock, but the men aren't letting them and they're pushing the their animals in front of them and not letting these women have any kind of time for watering their flock. So what is Moosa do? He picks up the flock of

these of these ladies, and he helps them they end up being the daughters of the leader of that particular tribe. Some Muslim scholars say that that was also a prophet by the name of shrine. And in the biblical narrative, it is close to that. And in the, in the end, the daughter of this leader of the tribe, tells her father, take him as you're trustworthy, because he is a man of strength and trust. So he comes and makes him an offer says, Listen, you have to work for me for eight years. And if you want, you can complete to 10. But I would like to offer you that you work for eight years. And when you do that, I will also offer you one of my daughters to marry. That's a pretty dope

offer, right? Like, you get an internship, and then you're like, hey, guess what, you're gonna marry the president's daughter, too, right? So he's like, you know what, that sounds good. he marries the daughter of this leader of medicine. And he

works for him for eight years and completes 10. And in that process, when he is about near to finish his contract, him and his wife are traveling in the night, and God now has set up in the entire life of Moses, for him to reach his destiny. And that is when God sees a fire in the blessed valley of dua, and God directs him to come to this valley, he comes there, God speaks to him and says that I am your Lord. And he explains to him that you are a messenger and Prophet, and that you will go and bring justice to the children of Israel, and remove oppression against them. And then we set off the entire trilogy of the most of the Moses T. movie series, right? This is Volume One, they got three

more to go. In any case, Moses at that time, then

is guided by God, to bring justice to the children of Israel. And this happens in a number of ways. As you know, Pharaoh is not going to be like, Oh, you're a prophet of God, welcome to my house. Thank you, we're gonna give up our kingship. So he continued to commit oppression. God gave him nine signs mentioned in the Koran, and eventually,

the Prophet Musa Musa

has the children of Israel

Plan A escape route. And as they try to escape, he's tried and exhausted all means to to end the plans of Pharaoh and his attack, and the sides would not convince him to accept the true faith. So therefore, God tells him that is not for you to have Exodus, which is the first book in the Bible. Right and

First thing that that Moses does is he makes a prayer. He says, My people, if you have faith in God and are devoted to him, put your trust in Him. And these are the verses that you just listened to. In the beginning of this discussion. They said, We have put our trust in God, Lord, do not make us an object of persecution for the oppressors. Roughly, in biblical narrative. It is said 430 years they were slavery, this has proven to be

inaccurate and false. In fact, biblical scholars themselves says, based on understanding the Hebrew text, does slavery didn't go more than 100 years.

So this was now 100 years, two generations maybe of, of persecution, they asked God save us in your mercy from those who reject your message. So God says, We revealed to Moses and his brother Aaron, who also became a prophet, how's your people in Egypt and make those houses places of worship, keep up the prayer, give good news to the believers, and Moses, then after a period of time, he makes a prayer he says, Our Lord, You have given Pharaoh and his chiefs, wealth and power, and their present life, and here they are Lord, leading others astray from your way, our Lord, just destroy their wealth and harden their hearts so that you they do not believe until until they see the agonizing

torment from the amount of punishment they inflicted on the children of Israel, God said, we answered your prayers. So stay on the right course, and do not follow the path of those who do not know. And then God says, we took the children of Israel to the Red Sea, as is mentioned, and this is the story of now of Moses in the Red Sea, Moses comes across the Red Sea, and he sees in front of him a giant body of water. And he sees behind him, a large army of Pharaoh coming to annihilate and kill them all, and not leave any prisoners. So at this moment, he raises his hands and prays to God, asking them for deliverance and safety, and God tells him take your stuff, or Moses, and strike the

sea. And when he strikes the sea, the sea parts, and in other narrations in an Islamic tradition, that there are paths made for every one of the tribes, as there was a large number of the children of Israel fleeing, so as they go across the Red Sea, and they cross the other path Pharaoh comes. And Pharaoh in a suit pursued them and arrogance and aggression, saying that we will cross this as well. I am the Lord of the heavens and the earth, and I will be able to go across this. God then commands the sea to fall on Pharaoh, what is Pharaoh doing? He's striking the Red Sea to try to make it fall again. God is teaching even Moses a lesson, that it's not about your strike. You took the

means your jobs over. So the sea party you're not pardoning wasn't in your staff, Moses.

It's in the will of God. And no matter how many times Moosa has tried or Moosa tries to strike the Red Sea, it's not falling on them until God wishes and they are in the middle of the Red Sea, God makes the Red Sea fall on the

army of Pharaoh and kills Pharaoh, and leaves him as a sign for humanity, to reflect on what ultimate oppression will result in. And this is what God says, as he is dying. He God records the events of his final moments, as he's dying, he says, Now, I believe there is no god except the God of the children of Israel. He didn't say, I don't believe in God, the Creator out of his arrogance, he said, I believe in the God of the children of Israel. And I submit to Him, God says to him now, at your final moments, it's rejected. Now, when you see death, when you always had been a rebel, and a person will come into depression, today, we shall save you only a corpse, as assigned to all came

after you. Many people fail to heat our signs. And these are Signs for those who reflect in the story of Moses and the Red Sea. With Pharaoh, now Moses, the story is not over. This is like a very nice, short version of his entire story. God preserved the story of Moses with his people, and Moses receiving revelation, and how they went astray from the true religion they saw imagine, this entire tribe saw the signs of God, nine signs, and they saw the Red Sea splitting, then they decided to go astray from the Word of God. And Moses comes back and finds them worshiping a calf, or a cow. And that story is also recorded. Then God promises them saying that we will deliver you to the Holy Land

again, just like David and Solomon were the kings of Kingdom, the kings of your kingdom, we will deliver you back to the Holy Land. They say it has until what I will call partida in the hoonah, which is mentioned in the Quran, which means you and your Lord, go fight Moses. We're gonna sit here and chill. We're not

In a fight another oppressive army, like the oppressive army and tyrant of Pharaoh. So God says, If that is the case, may you be lost in the desert for 40 years, and that is preserved in the Quran as well until Moses himself dies in the process. And as he's dying, he says, I just want to pass away and die as close as possible to the Holy Land as I can. So he basically comes a distance of 30 miles from

Jerusalem, in a city, we believe Muslims

in a city known as Jericho, as predominant view of Muslim scholars, and that his grave is buried there, in the valley of Jericho,

and not in mountain Moab, in Jordan, as it is in the Judeo Christian belief. They have three opinions in Judeo Christian belief for Moses is very, some saying Jordan, some say between the valley and some say in Jericho, and we believe the opinion is that he was buried near the city of Jericho, in general, Moses a story and in general,

God says about him, we have made those who have been oppressed succeed, both in the east and the west of the land. And we add, bless your Lord's good promise to the children of Israel souls fulfilled because of their patience, and we destroyed the level to the ground, what Pharaoh and his people erected with such pride. This story teaches us a number of things in the Muslim narrative, number one, that oppression will never last by a tyrant. Number two, it was used as a story to give the Prophet Mohammed strength, saying you are not the only one to follow in this way. There are prophets and messengers who went much worse than you, and were attacked much worse than you. So

therefore, continue in your path. And the Prophet Mohammed In fact, went through much greater hardship and resolve against its own people, where they attacked and killed his family. And they literally tried to assassinate him over 13 times in his life, where they killed some of his own family members in front of him. So he was given strength personally, through the stories of the prophets and messengers that follow the same message before him. For the believers, it's a sign to show do not follow in the footsteps of those who have passed, people who thought that they were arrogant because of their lineage. People thought who they were, they were given in favors, because

they were the chosen people of God at that time. So they allowed this arrogance to reject what God taught them. God even says, In the Quran, we favored you, oh children of Israel, and we made you above others and gave you status. So what have you done with this when it came to submission to the will of God. And God teaches this as a message to everyone who follows the way of the prophets and messengers, and this is where we come to now. And the end, we, as Muslims believe that Islam, again, is not a separation from the belief of Moses and Jesus, and the rest of the prophets and messengers, rather, Islam in itself means the one who submits or submits to the Divine Will of God. And that is

what a Muslim is, a Muslim is somebody who submit to the Divine Will of God. And that is why we believe that the final message that was sent to humanity is the message that preserved this faith, the divine submission to, to God, the Creator. And therefore,

God sent the Quran as the final message to be preserved. And he said in it, if they find many contradictions in it, know that it is from other than God, this book is a book which has no doubt, and we have sent it, and we are the ones who will preserve it as the final message and revelation to humanity. And this is the reason why God sent the story of Moses and the Red Sea, so that humanity can take reflection over it and guidance over it in their own lives from the creator in order to fulfill their final purpose, which is to submit to the one

divine creator and God

and live their life according to His guidance. So with that, we end the discussion of Moses and the Red Sea. I have a few recommendations for you, we will open up the floor for q&a. So while you're thinking of questions, I'm going to give you recommendations because some sometimes you need to think, alright, if you have any questions, just let me know. We're going to just call up, the books that I recommend to you are three. The first book I recommend to you, obviously is the full on itself to read it. This is one of the best translations of a full on. It's called the transition by ma s abdulhadi. It's also free on the internet, don't tell anybody, I'll tell you, but you can order

it on Amazon. If you want to just order very simply type Oxford press on, on Amazon, you'll get it. The second book I really recommend for all of you is in the footsteps of the Prophet, which is the life of the Prophet Mohammed why he was the Prophet. Why was he chosen as

The message the final messenger and to deliver the final guidance to humanity. This book is amazing. It's very palatable and accessible language. The third book, I recommend if you're interested in the comparison, tradition, or narrative between Judeo Christian, particularly Christian narrative, versus the Muslim narrative, this is an excellent book that just came out recently. It's called the Bible and the Koran, biblical figures in the Islamic tradition. And it compares it's a very nice survey, and gives you some reading material in the bibliography if you're interested in particular prophets and messengers, an amazing book that covers the comparison route. With that being said,

like we started from the beginning of this, of this discussion, the Muslim narrative believes there's only one narrative. But that does not mean that we don't respect Jewish tradition and Christian tradition, obviously, respect Christian tradition and Jewish tradition, and welcome this kind of discourse for us to come to some kind of discussion with regards to beliefs that we have and hold, as well as to be very honest with one another in terms of what we believe in. And our faith enjoins us as an obligation to believe in the Bible, as it was revealed to Jesus, and the Torah as it was revealed to Moses. And we are forbidden from even mocking or joking about the Bible, Torah or

make Jesus jokes as you say, right, or Moses jokes, we are not allowed to, it's forbidden in Islam, for us to make these kind of jokes, or to look at them even in negative light. It is an obligation for us to love these prophets and messengers, and for anyone to mock them as a sign of disbelief. And that is why God says if you mock one of them, you will not all of them. This is the Muslim narrative in general, it welcomes us for discourse, just like we're we are doing here. But at the same time, it's a very honest discussion, that we believe the previous message, and the previous revelations were corrupted, and therefore it was time for the final revelation to humanity. So thank

you all for inviting me. God knows best May God allow us to see truth as truth and allow us to follow and to see false as false as laws to follow and to be raised in the ranks of Moses, Jesus, Adam, Abraham, Noah, David, Solomon, and Muhammad peace be upon him and all of the prophets and messengers and the believers that follow them in excellence. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any questions? Yes. Thank you.