What the Stories Teach

The lessons that these stories teach, and that the reader will draw from them, in shāʾ Allāh, on reading them for himself, are the following.

First, that Allah (swt) protected Mūsā (peace be upon him) and his people from Pharaoh and his oppression. He had in fact begun as a child who was being protected so that he would not be killed, and then of a sudden he becomes the greatest source of death, one may say, for Pharaoh.

Second, how he was so beloved of the people, such that anybody who saw him would love him.

Third, that although his mother lost him in a sense afterwards — she retained some access to him, as the chapter on Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ relates — Allah (swt), through miraculous means, gave him the best tarbiyah that could be had, in the royal household of Pharaoh; and still Allah made him the prophet.

Hence the saying of a poet — and Allah knows best as to the reality of it — that if a person has not been written down as fortunate from eternity, in the qadr of Allah, then it matters not who brings him up, who gives him tarbiyah and disciplines him; every such effort will fail. Thus the Mūsā who was brought up by Jibrīl becomes a kāfir, and the Mūsā who was brought up by Pharaoh becomes a prophet, a messenger.

Who is this Mūsā that was brought up by Jibrīl? Apparently — and Allah knows best about the story, whether it is a reality or not — certain extended versions, probably Israelite in origin, tell of the Sāmirī being in a shipwreck with his mother, of his surviving, the only one who survived, and of Jibrīl (peace be upon him) looking after him and bringing him up. Allah knows best. Mūsā (peace be upon him), however, was certainly brought up by Pharaoh, as the story is known, and he becomes a messenger.

Several other things are to be learnt from the account: Allah (swt) gives him prophecy, Allah (swt) speaks to him, and more besides. The greater part of the verses of this sūrah — probably the majority, by this point — concern Mūsā (peace be upon him).