Like the Prophets before him...

Like the Prophets before him, he tried to bring an end to their narrow and ossified thinking by inculcating in them the preference for the life in the next world.

The verse above mentions only one of the wondrous miracles of this Godly man and contains several novel and elegant points, the exposition of which follows below: According to the scholars who have commented on this verse, the phrase, “white without evil” refers to the whiteness of the hand of Prophet Musa (A), which he presented to the people as a proof of his claim of prophethood. The use of the phrase, “without evil”, negates the notion that his hand was stricken or afflicted by any disease.

In fact, the Qur’an asserts that this whiteness was distinct from a kind of known illness. This explanation is weak in several respects: 1. The whiteness of the hand of this Prophet of God must have resembled the whiteness of a kind of sickness (vitiligo or leukoderma) for the verse to allay the concerns of the observers and reassure them that there was no affliction present. 2.

At the time of Prophet Musa (A) magicians performed wondrous acts, and even though the deeds of the magicians and charlatans were the result of their limited human abilities and were based only on sleight-of-hand, training and practice, they nevertheless had a great effect on the minds of the common people. However, a miracle of this type (a white hand) was not of the same level as the other miracles displayed by Musa (A), each of which was amazing and unique in its own right.

Furthermore, the miracle of the white hand (as currently described) would not convince the masses that an extra-ordinary act was taking place, or weaken the position of the magicians and convince them to come out to the arena of confrontation. 3. This miracle was only visible to the group who had gathered around Prophet Musa (A) and it was difficult for those who were even a few metres away from him to see it clearly.

(al-Shu‘ara, 26/31-32) The verse above describes how Prophet Musa (A) first cast down his staff in front of a large crowd of Fir‘awn’s people and others that had been assembled to watch him.