An Aspect of the Qur'aan's Miraculous Nature
In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips
For a scripture to qualify as divinely revealed it must be totally accurate
in its descriptions of reality: the past, the present and the future. The
Qur'aan has many stories about previous prophets and their peoples.
Some of these stories have elements in them that can be checked out
for their accuracy. One example of the Qur'aan's precision in its
historical descriptions is in the story of Prophet Yoosuf (Joseph), who
was sold as a slave in Egypt, but rose to become an important official in
the government, which made it possible for him to bring his whole family
to live there in honor. Most historians agree that the entry of the
Children of Israel into Egypt occurred when the northern half of the
country was ruled by the Hyksos, Semitic invaders who were the first
non-Egyptians to rule that country since the rise of the Old Kingdom.
The Qur'aan always calls the Egyptian ruler who confronted Moses by
the title of "Pharaoah." Every Egyptian ruler was called by this title
starting from the reign of Amenhotep IV in the 14th century BC, but not
before that. Yoosuf lived at least two hundred years before Amenhotep
IV. The Qur'aan consistently refers to the ruler in Yoosuf's time, as
"al-malik," the king:
"The king [al-malik] said, 'Bring him to me." [Soorah Yoosuf (12):50.]
It should be noted that the Bible refers to the ruler of Joseph's time as
"Pharaoah," which was an anachronism inserted by the scribes who
wrote the books of the Old Testament centuries after Moses.
Bucaille, Maurice, Moses and Pharaoah: The Hebrews in Egypt, p. 176.
Tokyo: NTT Mediascope, 1st ed. 1994. This part of the chapter is based on Dr. Maurice Bucaille's book "Moses and Pharaoah. The Hebrews in Egypt"
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