Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Cesar A. Majul, The Contemporary 

Muslim Movement in the Philippines (Berkeley: Mizan 

Press, 1985); Thomas M. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and 

Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the 

Southern Philippines (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1998); Najeeb M. Saleeby, The History of Sulu

(Manila: Bureau of Science, Division of Ethnology Pub-

lications, 1908).

Moses

 

(scholars debate his historicity; 

some place him ca. 13th century 

b

.

c

.

e

.) 

(Arabic: Musa)

 

biblical leader who freed Israelites 

from slavery in ancient Egypt and received the Torah 

on Mount Sinai; considered an exemplary prophet in 

Judaism and Islam

Moses is one of the most prominent people in 

the Bible and the q

Uran

. In both 

holy

 

books

 he 

is portrayed as a man called by God to lead the 

people of i

srael

 from enslavement under the 

Egyptian pharaoh and deliver God’s revelations to 

them. Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible as the t

orah

(instruction or law) of Moses, and consider their 

Talmud (study or learning) to be the oral Torah 

of Moses. For them, he is both a prophet and a 

rabbi, or teacher. Moses is mentioned more than 

any other Hebrew prophet in the New Testament. 

Christians also hold him in high esteem as a 

lawgiver, and they have drawn parallels between 

him and J

esUs

, whom they also call the “second 

Moses.”

Muslim understandings of Moses are based 

in the Quran and the Islamic scriptural commen-

taries (sing. 

tafsir

). He is also mentioned in the 

hadith and in the “stories (qisas) of the prophets” 

literature. All of these sources presume contexts 

in which biblical and post-biblical accounts about 

Moses were in wide circulation among the Arabs, 

even before Muhammad’s time (i.e., prior to the 

seventh century). His name is mentioned in the 

Quran more than any other prophet—136 times, 

not counting indirect references to him. It occurs 

in chapters associated with both the Meccan and 

Medinan phases of Muhammad’s life, with the 

lengthiest narratives in Q 7, 18, 20, and 26. The 

stories are told so as to let the reader/listener draw 

parallels between events in the life of Moses and 

that of m

Uhammad

 (see, for example Q 20:99). 

Mount Sinai, Egypt 

(Juan E. Campo)

K  482  

Moses

---

They include accounts about God’s selection of 

both as his prophets, how both came into con-

frontation with their enemies as a result of their 

belief in one God, how they received holy books 

from God (the Torah and the Quran, respectively), 

and how they experienced rejection by their own 

people. There is also a parallel drawn between the 

deliverance of Moses and the Israelites from Egypt 

and the emigration (h

iJra

) of Muhammad and 

his followers from Mecca to Medina. Just as the 

pharaoh and his people were drowned in the sea, 

the enemies of the Muslims were also threatened 

with defeat and destruction. The Quran is clearly 

seeking to underscore the validity of Muhammad’s 

status as a prophet by making these parallels. It 

is also showing how the Jews, through their dis-

obedience, have broken their 

covenant

 with God, 

and that it has been transferred to Muhammad 

and his followers (Q 7:168–170).

Biblical events involving Moses also men-

tioned in the Quran are his being cast away on 

the waters as an infant by his mother to save his 

life (Q 20:37–40); his killing of the Egyptian (Q 

28:15); his escape to Midyan (Q 28:22–28); his 

calling by a fire and a divine voice coming from 

a tree (rather than a bush) by Mount Tur (Sinai, 

Q 28:29–30); his performing signs and wonders 

before pharaoh’s court (Q 7:104–109); his 40-day 

sojourn in the wilderness, where he received the 

tablets from God at the mountain (Q 7:144–145); 

and the Israelites’ disobedience of his brother 

Aaron (Harun) and worship of the golden calf (Q 

7:148–149; 20:85–91). A story mentioned in the 

Quran but not in the Bible is his journey to the 

“meeting place of the two seas” and encounter 

with a mysterious “servant of God,” identified by 

later commentators as k

hadir

 (the green one), who 

is more knowledgeable than Moses (Q 18:60–82). 

Moses then travels with Khadir to acquire some of 

his wisdom, but shows himself to be a less than 

adept student. The stories of the prophets tradi-

tion elaborates on this and other narratives about 

Moses, including the building of a temple for God 

and the deaths of both Aaron and Moses in the 

wilderness. In accounts concerning Muhammad’s 

n

ight

 J

oUrney

 

and

  a

scent

, Muhammad enters 

the sixth heaven and encounters Moses there 

with his people. The biblical prophet declares 

that Muhammad is more honored in God’s eyes 

than he, and weeps because more of Muhammad’s 

community (

umma

) will enter paradise than of 

his. Later in the story, Moses helps Muhammad 

negotiate with God to reduce the number of daily 

prayers Muslims are required to perform from 50 

to five.

Over time Shiis and Sufis developed their own 

distinctive understandings concerning the body of 

narratives connected with Moses. The Shia see in 

the relationship of Moses with his brother Aaron 

a prefiguration of Muhammad’s relationship with 

a

li

 

ibn

 a

bi

 t

alib

 (d. 661), his cousin, son-in-law, 

and the first Shii Imam. They also include Moses 

among the prophets through whom the authority 

of the Imams was transmitted in the generations 

preceding that of Muhammad and his cousin 

Ali. In i

smaili

 s

hiism

, Moses is counted as one of 

seven “speaking” prophets (the others are Adam, 

Noah, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and Muham-

mad ibn Ismail), who revealed God’s law for all 

believers to obey; whereas Aaron is one of seven 

of seven “silent” prophets who convey the hid-

den truths of God’s revelation to a select group 

of believers. Sufis, for their part, have looked to 

Moses’s encounter with God at Sinai as an exem-

plary mystical experience, and they saw in his 

success in splitting the sea and overcoming the 40 

years of trial in the desert a model for those seek-

ing inspiration to pursue the mystic’s path to unity 

with God. Jalal al-Din r

Umi

 (d. 1273) taught that 

Moses and pharaoh were contending spiritual 

impulses embodied in each person, suggesting 

that those guided by the light of Moses will dis-

cover that Sinai, the place of the encounter with 

God, can be found in their own hearts.

During the 20th century the story of Moses’s 

confrontation with pharaoh has been invoked 

by Islamists to justify their opposition to “dis-

believing” secular regimes and tyrannical rulers.