al-Ṣaffāt

وَلَقَدْ مَنَنَّا عَلَي مُوسَي وَهَارُونَ

وَنَجَّيْنَاهُمَا وَقَوْمَهُمَا مِنَ الْكَرْبِ الْعَظِيمِ

وَنَصَرْنَاهُمْ فَكَانُوا هُمُ الْغَالِبِينَ

114. “We bestowed Our favour on Moses and Aaron.”

115. “And We delivered them both and their people from the great distress.”

116. “And We helped them so that they were the victors (over their enemies).”

The remembrance of the graces and favours of Allah to the former Divine prophets (as) was the cause of peace, comfort, encouragement and consolation of the Prophet of Islam (S) and the Muslims in the terrible circumstances of Mecca. These verses refer to a part of the Divine favours unto Moses and his brother, Aaron, and there are some discussions consistent with what was formerly said about Noah and Abraham in the previous verses. The contents of these verses are fairly similar to each other, and the words are somehow harmonized so that they may arrange a firm training program about the believers.

Again in these verses for the explanation of many events the style of ‘epitome and expansion’, which is the style of the Qur’an, has been used. At first, it says:

In Philology and the uses of the Qur’an, the Arabic term /minnat/ has a vast meaning which includes bestowing the divine heavy bounties, too. However, in these verses Allah secretly gives the news of some worthy and great favours which he granted to these two brothers; and in the later verses He explains a few of these favours each of which is worthier than the other. In the second verse, Allah says:

What grief was greater than this that the Children of Israel were captured in the grips of the cruel, blood-thirsty people of Pharaoh who used to slaughter their sons and spared alive their females to serve them and make their men work hard for them? Yes, losing freedom and being involved in the grips of a cruel king who had mercy neither on the children nor on the adults, and he even misused the honour of the females of a nation, was a great distress and a heavy grief. This was the first favour that Allah bestowed on the Children of Israel.

Then, in the third verse, the Qur’an implies that Allah helped Moses and Aaron and the Children of Israel so that they could win their powerful enemies, on the day when the great blood-thirsty army of Pharaoh, and in front of them Pharaoh himself, forcefully attacked them, the Children of Israel were very weak and had not enough fighters and means of war to fight against them, but the grace of Allah came to help them and buried the troops of Pharaoh in the waves of the sea.

So the Children of Israel were delivered from great distress and He gave the Pharaohs’ castles, wealth, gardens, and properties to them.