Then your hearts hardened after that...

Then your hearts hardened after that, so that they were like rocks, rather worse in hardness; and surely there are some rocks from which streams burst forth, and surely there are some of them which split asunder so water issues out of them, and surely there are some of them which fall down for fear of Allâh, and Allâh is not at all heedless of what you do (74) .

COMMENTARY QUR’?N : And lifted the mountain over you: "at-Tur" ( ) is mountain; that is why has been substituted by "al-jabal" ( = mountain) in verse: And when We wrested away the mountain over them as if it were a covering overhead (7:171). "an-Natq" ( = to wrest away; to pull out).

The verse at first mentions taking of a promise; and ends with the command to take hold of what they were given and to bear in mind what was in it; in between it refers to the lifting of the mountain over them, without saying why it was lifted. But the context clearly shows that it was done to frighten them without putting them under compulsion, in order that they might obey what they were told - if Allâh had wished to compel them, there was no need to take any promise before.

Objection: If we were to take the sentence, "and lifted the mountain over you", in its literal meaning, it would be a miracu­lous sign that would have forced the Israelites to obey the given command under duress and coercion; but Allâh says: There is no compulsion in the religion (2:256); . . . will you then force men till they become believers? (10:99) . Reply: The objection is baseless. The sentence shows only that they were threatened and frightened.

Just lifting the moun­tain over their head was not enough to coerce and force them to believe and obey. Otherwise, most of the miracles shown by Musa (a.s.) could be termed as "compulsion"! The said questioner has tried to explain away this sentence in this way: "The Israelites were at the foot of the mountain; it was shaken violently and during that convulsion its summit loomed over them, until they thought that it was going to fall over them.

It is this natural phenomenon that has been described as pulling out the mountain and lifting it over them." Such misinterpretations emanate from rejection of the principle of "miracle" altogether. We have already written in detail on this subject.