The name "Israelites" or "the Sons of Israel" was given...

The name "Israelites" or "the Sons of Israel" was given first to the sons of Jacob, Abraham's grandson, and afterwards to the whole Jewish people who derived from him. The Israelites had safeguarded the monotheistic faith that they had inherited from their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, peace be upon them. Together with Joseph, peace be upon him, they went into Egypt and preserved their monotheism for a long period of time, despite the fact that they had lived amidst Egyptian idolatry.

It is clear from the stories related in the Qur'an that, when Moses came to them, the Israelites were a people that believed in one God. The only explanation for this is that the Israelites, however much they adhered to a monotheistic belief, were influenced by the pagan peoples among whom them lived, and began to imitate them, replacing the religion chosen for them by God with the idolatry of foreign nations.

When we investigate this matter in light of historical records, we see that the pagan cult that influenced the Israelites was that of Ancient Egypt. An important evidence in support of this conclusion is that the golden calf the Israelites worshipped, while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, was actually a replica of the Egyptian idols Hathor and Aphis.

In his book, Too Long in the Sun, the Christian author Richard Rives writes: Hathor and Aphis, the cow and bull gods of Egypt, were representatives of sun worship. Their worship was just one stage in the long Egyptian history of solar veneration. The golden calf at Mount Sinai is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the feast proclaimed was related to sun worship…23 The influence of the Egyptian pagan religion on the Israelites occurred in many different stages.

As soon as they had encountered a pagan people, this leaning towards heretical belief appeared and, as the verse maintains, they said "Moses, give us a god just as these people have gods." (Qur'an, 7: 138) What they said to their Prophet, "Moses, we will not believe in you until we see God with our own eyes." (Qur'an, 2: 55) reveals that they were inclined to worship a material being that they could see, as their pagan religion provided the Egyptians with.

The tendency of the Israelites to the paganism of Ancient Egypt, that we have here outlined, is important to understand and gives us some insight into the corruption of the text of the Torah and the origins of the Kabbalah.