Jonah (Yunus)

Commentary

(a) The mission of Moses in Egypt was two-sided—firstly to call upon Pharaoh and his people to accept the oneness of God and the Hereafter and, secondly, to lead the Israelites out of Egypt into the open atmosphere of the desert and to train them there. When the call for the Truth, meant for Pharaoh, had been fully accom- plished in accordance with God’s command, Moses was commanded to set out from Egypt along with the Israelites. In order to reach the Sinai desert, they found it necessary to cross the Red Sea. When the Children of Israel reached the bank of the sea under the leadership of Moses, of God’s command Moses struck the water with his staff. The waters parted and rose up to the right and left. They stayed like that and in between a dry path appeared. Moses and the Children of Israel easily crossed over by means of this path. While in pursuit of the Children of Israel, Pharaoh forged ahead with his army. When he reached the bank of the sea, he saw that Moses and the Children of Israel were passing along a dry path. The wide stretch of the sea had been torn asunder and had given way to Moses and his companions. This event was, in fact, a sign from God. Pharaoh should have learned the lesson from this that Moses stood for the Truth and that God was with him. But he treated the separating of the waters as an ordinary mundane event instead of treating it as a Godly miracle. He saw only the sea between himself and Moses, though in fact God Himself was standing there. Thus an event in which there was a message of obedience (to God) and inclination (towards Him) for Pharaoh, merely caused an increase in his arrogance. He saw the ‘sea’ but did not see ‘God.’ He thought that he too could cross the sea as Moses and his companions had done. (a) With this thought, Pharaoh and his army entered the sea. The water of the sea had split in two only for the sake of Moses and his companions and not for Pharaoh and his followers. So, when Pharaoh and his army reached the middle of the sea, both sides of the water joined, in compliance with God’s command, and Pharaoh along with his army was drowned. While drowning, he declared his acceptance of faith, but it was useless, because in the eyes of Almighty God, only a voluntary embracing of the Faith is reliable and acceptable and not a compulsory profession of Faith. The result of disobedience to God arising from arrogance is destruction. Examples of such incidents used to occur from time to time during the period of the Prophet. However, some examples of this type have been given historical shape by God, so that they might continue to give lessons to man in later ages after the time of the prophets had ended. One of these historical examples from the period of Moses is that of Pharaoh (Rameses II) whose mummified body was found by archaeolo- gists in the ancient Egyptian town of Thebes. It is now kept on display in the museum at Cairo.