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What strikes me about the Qur’an, having read some of it in preparation for this paper, is the remarkable similarity it bears to the Old Testament. Similar stories are told, though at times the Qur’an is confusing due to its categorization of Surat by length as opposed to place in chronological order.
One of these stories encompasses several Surat and chapters of the second book of the Bible, Exodus. This is the story of the birth, upbringing, and important events in the life of Moses. By presenting studying these as presented in the Qur’an and Bible I hope to gain some sort of resolution toward my notion that the Qur’an and Bible are, in some sense, the same book. That is to say, while the Qur’an is the Holy book of Islam and the Bible the Holy book of Christians (and the Old Testament the Holy book of Judaism), the stories, lessons and the accounts of various lives are similar such that they appear to discuss the same people.
The birth and adoption of Moses:
The Qur’an holds that “We” (which is supposed to be understood by the reader as Allâh) told Moses’s mother to cast her son into a river:
“And We inspired the mother of Mûsa, "Suckle him, but when you fear for him, then cast him into the river and fear not, nor grieve.” (Surat 28:7)
Then, according to the Qur’an, one of the household of the Pharaoh picked him up. The Qur’an attributes this to the sinfulness of the Pharaoh and his family (Surat 28:8). Then, Pharaoh’s wife picks him up and proposes that they adopt him as their son. Miriam, Moses’s sister, poses this question to them:
"Shall I direct you to a household who will rear him for you, and sincerely they will look after him in a good manner?" (Surat 28: 12)
The Qur’an goes on to say that Moses was given back to his mother, and attained the status of a prophet (called Hukman by the Qur’an).
The Bible’s story is fairly similar; it includes information about a basket Moses’s mother used (Exodus 2:3), with his sister watching (no mention of his mother). The Bible holds, however, that Pharaoh’s daughter, not wife, came to bathe at the same river (Exodus 2:5) with her maidens, one of whom was sent to fetch the baby from his basket. Upon seeing the baby, the decision is reached that it is a Hebrew baby. At this point, the Bible gets into more graphic detail than the Qur’an, as Miriam, Moses’s sister, asks Pharaoh’s daughter if she wishes to have a nurse for the baby (Exodus 2:2). Moses’s mother is also paid, a rather drastic change from the usual, as Hebrew babies were often killed, one reason for the mother’s decision to lay her baby among the reeds. So now we have a mother being paid to nurse her own baby, whom she had thought might be killed.
The next part of Moses’s life on which the Qur’an and Bible agree is the account of how Moses killed a man.
“And he entered the city at a time of unawareness of its people, and he found there two men fighting, - one of his party, and the other of his foes. The man of his party asked him for help against his foe, so Mûsa struck him with his fist and killed him. He said: ‘This is of Shaitân's doing, verily, he is a plain misleading enemy.’” (Surat 28: 15)
The Bible lays down a fairly similar story, but with different details. It makes no mention of his confusion over the people, but it does give Moses discretion. The Bible says (Exodus 2:12) that Moses looked around to make sure nobody was watching, then “he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” It also leaves out the part where Moses is asked for help, which is stated in the previous quotation from the Qur’an.
The next day, Moses notices two Hebrews struggling together (fighting) and asks them why they do this. Their response (Exodus 2:14) assures Moses that his murder of the Egyptian is known, and in the next verse we learn that Pharaoh is also aware of Moses’s dead. As a result, he flees and goes to Mid’ian.
The Qur’an gives a slightly different aftermath. Surat 28:16-17 deal with Moses’s admission of sin and request for forgiveness, which is given. The next verse tells us that one of the Hebrews fighting was, in fact, the same one he had rescued the day before. After a brief discourse between Moses and the man he had saved, another man comes running to tell Moses the chiefs (I assume here chief priests) are in counsel and ready to kill him. The ending is the same: he flees and goes to Mid’ian.
Moses’s marriage to one of the women he met at the well also presents us with some factual discrepancies. Surat 28:27 offers this:
“He said: ‘I intend to wed one of these two daughters of mine to you, on condition that you serve me for eight years, but if you complete ten years, it will be (a favour) from you. But I intend not to place you under a difficulty. If Allâh will, you will find me one of the righteous.'"
Exodus, however, disagrees with this slightly. In it, Moses stays with the father, and is given one of his daughters (Zippo’rah; again, no mention of her name in the Qur’an, and no mention of a choice of two in the Bible). The name of the son is not given in this Surat, though it is one with special meaning: “She bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’” (Exodus 2:22)
It is as Moses is traveling with his wife and son, in the Qur’an, that he sees a fire on Mount Tûr. Shortly thereafter (Surat 28:31) Allâh turns the stick Moses had thrown into a snake. This is the beginning of the ten plagues, for in the ensuing verses Allâh directs Moses in what he must and will do to rescue his people and bring them to the Promised Land.
The account given in Exodus varies slightly, probably due the fact that Moses’s life is contained in several of the Surat, and not in chronological order, whereas Exodus gives them in the order in which, it would appear, they happen. For instance, Moses is not on the road when he sees the burning bush, but with a flock of sheep on a mountain (the name of the mountain is given in Exodus as Horeb: the mountain of God).
Exodus 4:1-3 gives this account of Moses and the burning bush:
2And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, "I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." 4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here am I." 5 Then he said, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
The corresponding verses in the Qur’an offer a similar account. Surat 20 opens with, after a few verses of praise to Allâh, Moses off to get a burning stick. He is then called by the Lord to take off his shoes (Surat 20:12). The rest of this Surat tells the story of what Christians know as the ten plagues. They start when Moses throws a stick on the ground and God turns it into a snake (Exodus 4:3; Surat 20: 20) while still on the Mount. Moses then questions God/Allâh about his speech impediment; the Bible makes no mention of the source for this, but scholars of the Qur’an say it can be found in Tafsir At-Tabarî, Vol. 16, Page 159.
One thing that seems rather apparent to me is that the Qur’an pads substantially more than the Bible. For example, verses 33-35 of Surat 20 in the Qur’an are nowhere to be found or equaled in the Biblical passage that corresponds to this story; the first seven verses of this same Surat do roughly the same thing. This makes comparing these texts solely on a line-by-line or verse-by-verse much more difficult than it could be — perhaps it is to disparage those who are not of the Muslim faith from reading their book?
The first major conflict the Bible has with the Qur’an in this story occurs in Exodus 4:20:
So Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on an ass, and went back to the land of Egypt; and in his hand Moses took the rod of God.
In the Qur’an, no mention is made of this. Perhaps it is seen as a secondary fact and not of terrible importance, but for the reasoning behind this verse: Moses had been worried because of an earlier incident in which he had killed a man, then fled later.
“[Allâh said: “]Go, both of you, to Fir'aun, verily, he has transgressed. And speak to him mildly, perhaps he may accept admonition or fear Allâh." They said: "Our Lord! Verily! We fear lest he should hasten to punish us or lest he should transgress." He said: "Fear not, verily! I am with you both, hearing and seeing. So go you both to him, and say: 'Verily, we are Messengers of your Lord, so let the Children of Israel go with us, and torment them not; indeed, we have come with a sign from your Lord!”
Allâh goes on to say in the proceeding verses that Pharaoh does
not believe any of what he is told by Moses.
No mistake can be made: Moses was one of the most important Biblical
figures; similarly, he seems to have been an influential and important
figure to Islam as well. Having read the story of Moses in the Bible
several times, and having seen interpretations of this done both on stage
and on screen, I am reasonably familiar with it. Having now read
a good portion of the Qur’an’s description of Moses’s life, it seems that
while there are factual discrepancies (as there are within the Bible; the
four Gospels provide convincing evidence of that) the accounts seem to
be largely the same.
