The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt and their subsequent exodus and settlement in Palestine have been among the most celebrated events of Biblical times. History, as related in the Bible, is very much the history of the Israelites who are portrayed as the “chosen people” of the Lord and the center of His plans for humanity. It is just natural, therefore, to find that such eminence has been given to the sojourn, exodus and settlement as these events represent the birth of the nation of the Children of Isrā’īl (Israel).

It is not only Jewish and Christian lay people who have shown exceptional interest in the sojourn, exodus and settlement. Scholars have also been investigating every aspect of each of these episodes of the history of the Israelites. Thousands of popular and academic books and articles have been and are still being published and many scholarly meetings have been organized to address every detail of these events. The scholarly interest in the sojourn‑exodus‑settlement episodes may be divided into theological and historical. It is the historical aspect of these events that is the main concern in this book.

While the theologians are interested in the religious significance and implications of the sojourn‑exodus‑settlement, the Biblical historians’ main concern is the historical value of these, and indeed all, Biblical events. In other words, unlike the theologian, the question for the historian is not what these events meant in religious terms but rather whether they occurred at all and if so whether they occurred as the Bible describes them. Ultimately, historical research into the sojourn-exodus-settlement has significant implications for the theology of these episodes.

The investigation of the historicity of the sojourn‑exodus‑settlement was boosted from the late 19th century onwards by the growing amount of information retrieved by archaeological excavations in Egypt, Palestine and Jordan, in particular, and the Near East, in general. Historians needed no more to rely only on the Bible itself or other ancient Jewish Biblical commentaries and interpretations. Scholars interested in the historicity of Biblical events have in archaeological finds objective sources of information that are totally independent of the Bible. Thus, the Biblical account started to be examined in the light of the new data. In the eyes of many, a totally new field of research has thus developed: “Biblical archaeology”. In other words, scholars had in the past only the ancient Bible to rely on but now there is also this continually increasing archaeological, extra‑Biblical data.

However, this interest of scholars in extra‑Biblical data in the form of archaeological finds contrasts totally with their persistent neglect of a non‑Biblical scriptural source of information that dates to the first half of the seventh century CE: the Qur’an. It is true that the Qur’an is not a traditional historical book like the Bible and that it gives only very brief information on ancient history of the Israelites, but it still contains significant information in terms of quality and quantity. Additionally, presenting itself as a Book revealed by Allah, the Creator of this universe and its Perfect Historian, the Qur’an claims independence of any other tradition, scriptural and oral, that was in circulation among people at the time. Furthermore, the Qur’an implies that the Bible is an inauthentic account of the truth, hence of history. Given the significant implications of these claims, one would expect the Qur’an to have been thoroughly examined by historians of the exodus, and indeed scholars of other disciplines, to see whether it does indeed fare better than the Bible when checked against external evidence. This has not happened.

Scholarly writings on the history of the exodus show researchers desperately clinging to a shred of pottery unearthed from an ancient site or arguing the reading and/or translation of a few hardly legible words from an ancient inscription to prove a point or another. Yet scholars have totally neglected the Qur’an. You read page after page of scholarly papers and books on the exodus expecting to find some reference to the Qur’anic version of the exodus and relevant events, just to be, alas, disappointed. Then you lower your ambitious expectations and your wish shifts towards finding something that would dispel the mystery for you and tell you the reason for this universal silence on the Qur’anic account. But this humble wish is also doomed to remain unfulfilled. You may come across references to ancient Jewish writings which relate to the Bible itself, yet the only thing you find about the Qur’anic account is this dead silence!

There are only two possible presumptions underlining this scholarly treatment of the Qur’an and the total reliance on the Biblical record of the ancient history of the Israelites. The first assumption is that the Bible represents a true account of history, hence any other book that contradicts the Bible lacks its status, is redundant and should, therefore, be neglected. However, the infallibility of the Bible is not really anymore a view that is seriously considered by scholars, so this assumption must be ruled out. We are thus left with the only possibility that the Qur’an is looked at as being derived from the Bible itself, hence it cannot be considered a different source of information. Indeed, when the silence on the Qur’anic account of the exodus is rarely broken it is merely to stress that it is no more than an edited version of its Biblical counterpart.

This assumption that underlines the total neglect of the Qur’an in research into the exodus is as old as the Qur’an itself. When the Qur’an was still being revealed it was claimed, as the Qur’an itself records, that Prophet Muhammad was not being taught by Allah but rather by a human who is knowledgeable of the religious books of the Jews and the Christians. This theory never lost its appeal throughout the centuries and remains lurking in the minds of many.

Scholars of the Bible point at similarities between the Qur’an and the Bible. This is sufficient for many to decide that the Qur’an was derived from the Bible. It is true that a cursory look at the Qur’an would reveal some similarities with the Bible. But then the Qur’an itself implies that the Bible was partially derived from an authentic divine book, the Tawrāt (Torah), and therefore those similarities are only to be expected. Additionally, these similarities are very limited indeed and the differences between the Qur’an and the Bible are much greater in quantity and quality than those similarities. This general statement is also true of the Qur’anic account and its Biblical counterpart of Israelite history. Therefore, the right approach to assessing the Qur’anic account of Israelite history is to investigate it carefully and thoroughly and to give it at least a small fraction of the time and energy that has been generously allocated to the Bible with, as will be shown in this book, very little return. If those interested in the historicity of the exodus had done so, they would have found a picture of the exodus that is internally consistent and in line with external evidence. It would have also saved them the endless confusion that the inconsistent Biblical narrative adamantly creates for its reader.

With consistency being a general characteristic of the Qur’anic text, the Qur’anic history of the exodus does not contain any internal discrepancy. Secondly, the Qur’an is free from those Biblical claims, or any other claims, that fly in the face of external evidence. To stress this, there is not a single Qur’anic statement that is contradicted by a single established historical fact. Thirdly, the Qur’an reveals a number of facts on the exodus that lead to an unambiguous identification of the Pharaoh of the exodus. It is the aim of this book to show the accuracy of all of the above statements. The implication of such a conclusion cannot be clearer: the Qur’an is the revelation of the Perfect Historian, Allah.

It is important to stress that this book does not follow the trend common among scholars of trying to rationalize miracles and present them as normal events to convince the disbeliever and the doubtful reader that they did occur. This book is in fact very much against this approach of attempting to adapt truth to people’s tastes and minds instead of trying the opposite. After all, the very aim of this work is to shed further light on the fact that the Qur’an is the greatest miracle of all time. This book is intended to determine the historical contexts within which miracles took place. It is true that history consists, largely, of normal and natural events, but miracles also have influentially contributed to what history came to be and will continue to do so. The crossing of the sea was one of those miracles without which the history of the world would have been totally different.

The picture of the exodus and related events developed in this book is based entirely on the Qur’an. In interpreting the Qur’anic text, we followed strictly the rule of al‑Imām ‘Alī bin Abī Tālib, the spiritual heir of Prophet Muhammad: “the Qur’an interprets itself”. As the main concern of this book is the Qur’anic version of the sojourn and the exodus, and to some extent the settlement, there is no emphasis on exposing all Biblical internal inconsistencies and contradictions with external evidence apart from those relevant to the argument of the book.

To follow are some general remarks on the format of the book. We have been careful in giving full reference whenever we felt this was needed. The translated meanings of Qur’anic text and the Biblical text have been given in formats distinct from other texts. The inclusion of the Arabic text of the cited Qur’anic passages would facilitate readers with handy access to the original text and better understanding and evaluation of the translation and interpretation given. After the Qur’an enters the discussions of the book in chapter three, the names of Prophets are cited in their Qur’anic spellings. Relevant information is given in tables 1 and 2.

Now a brief survey of the contents of the book. The first chapter presents the Biblical version of the exodus and then discusses some of its internal inconsistencies. The second chapter contrasts the Biblical account of the exodus with external evidence to draw inferences on the implied historical settings of the sojourn and exodus of the Israelites. It also indicates the identity of the Pharaoh of the exodus as implied by certain information in the Bible, though pointing out the existence of other contradictory Biblical data. Chapter three is an introduction to the Qur’an, with general information on the Book, its style and structure. A critical assessment of the nature and history of the Bible is given in chapter four. It consists of a very brief history of the view of western scholars of the Bible, followed by a rather detailed study of the Bible according to the Qur’an.

The rest of the book is concerned with its main aim which is studying early history of the Israelites as described in the Qur’an and comparing it with established historical facts. Chapter five deals with the first period of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, i.e. the entry of their forefathers. It determines the date and place of the entry of Prophet Ya‘qūb/Isrā’īl (Jacob/Israel) into Egypt. The next chapter contains an outline of the Qur’anic story of Mūsā (Moses) and quotations from the lengthier accounts in the Qur’an of this story. Chapter seven starts the analysis of the Qur’anic data of the story of Mūsā. It shows that the Qur’an has unambiguously identified the Pharaoh of the exodus. The identification is based on the amazing Qur’anic revelation almost 14 centuries ago of what became known only in modern times to be accurate facts about this Pharaoh. This chapter determines the exact date of the exodus.

Chapter eight explains the Qur’anic picture of the exodus and shows, again, its stunning agreement with independent, established facts. It determines the exact date of the entry of the Israelites into the holy land. Chapter nine studies the story of the birth of Mūsā and then the story of the birth of ‘Īsā (Jesus) in both the Qur’an and the Bible. Again, citing established historical data, contradictions are pointed out in the Biblical versions whereas the Qur’anic account is perfectly consistent and in line with external evidence. The last chapter deals with the historical problems associated with the name “Hebrew”, and then “Nazarene”. Here also the Qur’an gives amazingly accurate historical accounts, in contrast to the flawed Biblical arguments. The last section of chapter ten discusses the name “Muslim”. A re‑cap on the arguments of the book is finally given in the conclusion.

We hope that this study would start a serious debate of the Qur’anic account of the Israelites’ sojourn in Egypt, their exodus from it and their settlement in Palestine. We vehemently believe that we have made a strong case for many other contributions on this subject, and indeed on other parts and aspects of the Qur’anic text in general. One message that this book carries is that whether forgotten, neglected or abandoned, the Qur’an would still be there and the strength of its arguments becomes clearer with time as human knowledge develops.
 

Copyright 1999 Louay Fatoohi and Shetha Al-Dargazelli

All Rights Reserverd