The Night
of Power
Laylat Al Qadr or the “Night of Power” is the holiest night
of the year. It commemorates the night in the holy of month Ramadan when the
Qur’ān was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, beginning with the
exhortation, “Read!”
Waraqa Ibn Nawfal
was the earliest christian witness to the truthfulness of this revelation of
prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) , upon hearing this revelation
Waraqa said:
قَالَ وَرَقَةُ بْنُ نَوْفَلٍ يَا ابْنَ أَخِي مَاذَا تَرَى فَأَخْبَرَهُ
رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم خَبَرَ مَا رَآهُ فَقَالَ لَهُ وَرَقَةُ هَذَا النَّامُوسُ الَّذِي
أُنْزِلَ عَلَى مُوسَى صلى الله عليه
Waraqa
ibn Nawfal said:
O
my nephew! what did you see? The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), then, informed him
what he had seen, and Waraqa said to him:
“This
is the same Nāmūs whom Allah had revealed to Moses (p)“. ¹
It is interesting how the Arabic word “nāmūs” (ناموس) was used by Waraqa
to identify the revelation to prophet Muhammad which was coming from the
Ancient Greek word “nómos” (νόμος) which means “law” ². Waraqa thus
immediately recognized that like prophet Moses, Muhammad was also a law
giver, so that his revelation was meant as the (final) definitive
Guide and Law (nómos) from God Al Mighty ³.
Notes:
2.
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford, 1953), p
51.
3. In the end, the similarities between Moses who brought the Nāmūs
of Torah and the Nāmūs of Qur’ān signify the common ancestral
ties of the two faiths. Just as Moses fight his way to steer the Bnei
Yisrael toward monotheism, Muhammad fight his way to establish the
worship of the One God, to all people (An-Nās النَّاسَ)
An excellent piece of information written by Br. Eric Bin
Kasam, JazakhAllahu Khair.
I would like to add some information that I found from the
Jewish Midrash on how Gabriel Pbuh helped Moses Pbuh when he was a child. Note this
information are taken from Jewish sources not Islamic. it is purely to show how
the early life of Moses Pbuh was absent from the Torah.
Now Christians are unaware of the information which Br. Eric
Bin Kasam wrote. Saying that, they normally ask a different question which I would
share. Again here is the section from the hadith where waqara spoke:
Waraqa ibn
Nawfal said:
O my nephew! what did you see? The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), then, informed him what he had seen, and Waraqa said
to him:
“This is the
same Nāmūs whom Allah had
revealed to Moses (p)“. ¹
Sahih Muslim 160 a, In-book
reference : Book 1, Hadith 310
Notice from the above Hadith Warqa said “This is the same Nāmūs
whom Allah had revealed to Moses (p)“. Well Christians normally
ask where in the Torah does it say Angel Gabriel was sent to Moses Pbuh?. Well interesting that the Midrash tell us how
Angel Gabriel helped Moses Pbuh when he was a baby.
The Torah relates that the daughter of
Pharaoh found Moses when she went down to bathe in the Nile (Ex. 2:5). In the
midrashic expansion, she did not go there to bathe, but to cleanse herself from
the idols of her father’s house (that is, to perform the immersion of
conversion) (BT Megillah loc. cit.). This
exegesis illuminates the spiritual qualities of the daughter of Pharaoh, by
merit of which she was chosen to be the one to find and raise Moses.
The Rabbis magnify the test to which the daughter of Pharaoh
was put when she saw the ark. In the midrashic account, when her handmaidens
saw that she intended to rescue Moses, they attempted to dissuade her, and
persuade her to heed her father. They said to her: “Our mistress, it is the way
of the world that when a king issues a decree, it is not heeded by the entire
world, but his children and the members of his household do observe it, and you
wish to transgress your father’s decree?” Immediately, Gabriel appeared and beat them to the ground, and they died (BT Sotah 12b). These
handmaidens represent the internal voice of the daughter of Pharaoh, who might
have been undecided as to whether she should disobey her father’s edict. The angel Gabriel removes this obstacle and
reinforces her resolve to draw Moses forth from the Nile.
The midrash tells that the daughter of Pharaoh would kiss and hug
Moses as if he were her own son, and she would not take him out of the royal
palace. Because of his beauty, everyone desired to see him, and no one who saw
him could tear his eyes away. Moses’s life was in danger, despite the daughter
of Pharaoh’s guarding of the infant. One time Pharaoh held Moses and hugged
him. Moses took Pharaoh’s crown from the monarch’s head and put it on his own,
as he would later do when he grew up. Pharaoh’s magicians, who were sitting
there, explained: “We fear that this child will take your crown and place it on
his own head, lest this be the one who we prophesy will seize the kingdom from
you.” Some of the magicians said to kill the child, and some said to have him
burnt. Jethro was sitting among them (as one of the magicians). He told them:
“This child is witless. In order to test him, set before him two bowls, one
containing gold, and the other, a coal. If he stretches his hand to the coal,
he is witless and does not deserve to die; but if he stretches his hand to the
gold, he did this with intelligence, and he is to be put to death.” They
immediately set before him the gold and the coal and Moses put forth his hand
to take the gold, but Gabriel came and
pushed his hand away. Moses took the coal and put his hand, with the coal, in
his mouth. His tongue was burnt, thus causing him to be (Ex. 4:10) “slow of
speech and slow of tongue” (Ex. Rabbah 1:26). The Rabbis observe that the daughter of Pharaoh
raised in the palace the one who would eventually bring all manner of troubles
upon her father as punishment for the subjugation of Israel, as is said in
Ezek. 28:18: “So I made a fire issue from you, and it has devoured you,” thus
symbolizing the manner in which the future redemption would occur.
The midrash replies that she saw the Shekhinah (the Divine
Presence) with him, and the wording “va-tire-hu” alludes to the name of God (Ex. Rabbah 1:24).
Another approach is based on the continuation of the verse, that relates that
the child’s weeping motivated the daughter of Pharaoh: “She saw that it was a
child, a boy crying. She took pity on it.” The Rabbis maintain that divine
intervention was needed for the infant to cry, which they learn from a close
reading of v. 6. The beginning of the verse refers to Moses as a “child [yeled],” and then calls
him a “boy [na’ar],” from which the Rabbis learn that Moses was a yeled, that is, an
infant, but he conducted himself as a na’ar (an older child). Thus, when the daughter of Pharaoh
opened the ark, Moses, unlike other babies, did not cry. The angel
Gabriel immediately came and hit Moses so that he would cry, thereby arousing
the compassion of the daughter of Pharaoh (Ex. Rabbah 1:24). Another tradition claims that the daughter of
Pharaoh suffered from leprosy and she went
down to bathe in the water to be cured of her disease. When she touched Moses’s
ark, she was miraculously cured, leading her to take pity on the child and love
him so strongly (Ex. Rabbah 1:23).
According
to another version, there were guards at every entrance. Gabriel, however, introduced Moses and Aaron into the interior of the
palace without being seen (Yalḳ., Shemot, 175). As Moses' appearance before
Pharaoh resulted only in increasing the tasks of the children of Israel (comp.
Ex. v.), Moses returned to Midian; and, according to one version, he took his
wife and children back at the same time (Ex. R. v. 23).
So you can read from the above Angel Gabriel was present
helping Moses Pbuh since he was a baby. And it is highly absurd to claim that,
because Torah doesn’t narrate such stories it could not have happened. It is
not difficult to accept that such help would be given to Prophets of God.
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