And [mention] when Moses sought water for his people — that is, recall, O Muhammad, when he entreated for water on their behalf, al-istisqāʾ meaning to ask for water for one's people — for they had grown thirsty in the wilderness. We said, "Strike the rock with your staff" — that is, the very rock that had once fled with his garment, a light, four-sided stone the size of a man's head, of marble or soft limestone. He struck it, and it burst open and streamed forth: from it gushed twelve springs, equal to the number of the tribes, so that every group — each tribe among them — came to know its own drinking-place, which it shared with none of the others. And We said to them, "Eat of the provision of God, and drink of God's provision, and do not act wickedly in the earth, working corruption" — corruption here meaning to spread ruin, the phrase "working corruption" being a circumstantial qualifier reinforcing the verb it governs. The Exalted informs us that when Moses, upon him be peace, was in the wilderness with the Children of Israel, they grew thirsty and asked him to pray for water on their behalf. Herein lies the difference between the Children of Israel and the umma (community) of Muhammad, ṣ.a.w.s.: the nations before us had no right to ask anything of God, the Blessed and Exalted, directly. Whenever they wished to make any request whatsoever, they would bring it to the prophet of their age, for it was he alone who petitioned God, the Blessed and Exalted, directly — as is shown by Moses's praying for water on his people's behalf.

"And when you said, O Moses, we cannot endure one kind of food; pray to your Lord for us, that He may bring forth for us of what the earth produces" — none of this could they ask for directly from God, the Blessed and Exalted, Himself. This umma, however, God has granted the absolute license to supplicate: He has said, "And ask of God from His bounty," and He has said, "Call upon Me and I will answer you." Whoever among us is faced with any task or need simply asks God, the Blessed and Exalted, and He answers him.

They asked Moses, upon him be prayer and peace, for water. Now Moses was a man of great modesty (sitr), possessed of manly virtue (murūʾa) and shyness among his people. His people used to strip themselves bare when washing away seminal impurity, so that some of them would see the nakedness of others, but Moses, from the time he grew up, refused to do so: whenever he wished to wash, he would go far off, conceal himself, and wash alone. So they said, "Nothing drives Moses to this except that he has some concealed defect." One day, when he had gone apart, washed, and come out of the water, he wished to take up his garment, and the rock ran off with it. He went about crying, "My garment, O rock! My garment, O rock!" — meaning, O rock, give me back my garment — until he came before an assembly of people, who saw that there was nothing amiss with him. He then took his garment, put it on, and — being angry — took up his staff and struck the rock, whereupon God revealed to him that he was to carry that rock with him and never part from it. So when they were in the wilderness and asked him for water, God revealed to him that he should strike this rock with his staff. He struck it — it being four-sided, with four corners, each corner producing three springs — and twelve springs came forth in all, corresponding to the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel, as God, the Blessed and Exalted, has said; each tribe had its own separate drinking-place. This is the meaning of "each group knew its drinking-place."

The Messenger, ṣ.a.w.s., was likewise asked by his people for water. He ascended the pulpit, raised his hands with their backs turned toward the sky, and said, "O God, water Your land, have mercy upon Your servants, spread abroad Your mercy, and revive Your dead land." The narrator relates that the sky was like glass, without a single wisp of cloud in it, when a cloud came and enveloped the city, and rain fell from that Friday until the following Friday.

Now, Moses's people had asked Moses to pray to God for water on their behalf, and Moses prayed at his people's request, and God answered his prayer. How much more fitting, then, that Muhammad, ṣ.a.w.s., who prayed for us at the very command of God, the Blessed and Exalted — as in His words, "and ask forgiveness for your sin, and for the believing men and believing women" — this being a command from God that the Prophet, ṣ.a.w.s., seek forgiveness on our behalf. He asks forgiveness for us by God's own command. Since Moses's prayer was answered though he prayed only at his people's request, then Muhammad's prayer — offered at the command of God, the Blessed and Exalted, Himself — is all the stronger and more to be hoped for. We therefore have great hope in the fact that God commanded His Prophet to pray to Him for us and to seek forgiveness on our behalf.

"Eat and drink of God's provision": He commanded them to eat freely and to drink freely, and this might well have carried them into indulgence and excess leading to corruption, so He followed it directly with His words, "and do not act wickedly in the earth, working corruption" — eat and drink, but do not act wickedly in the earth, working corruption; and elsewhere again, "Eat and drink, but do not be excessive; verily He does not love the excessive." Just as Moses asked for water on behalf of his people, the Children of Israel, and twelve springs burst forth from the rock, so too does Moses the spirit (rūḥ) within every human being ask for water on behalf of his own people, who are the five outward senses and the five inward senses, together with the lower self (nafs) and the heart (qalb) — twelve faculties in all. So when the rock of the servant's existence is struck with the staff of lā ilāha illā Llāh (there is no god but God), twelve springs burst forth, and each group knows its drinking-place: the drinking-place of the nafs is worship and spiritual struggle (mujāhada); the drinking-place of the qalb is fear and hope; the drinking-place of the ʿaql (intellect) is contraction and expansion; the drinking-place of the rūḥ is the witnessing of Beauty and Majesty; and the drinking-place of the sirr (innermost secret) is intimacy and awe — as it is said, "and their Lord will give them to drink a pure drink." "Eat and drink of God's provision, and do not act wickedly in the earth, working corruption" — that is, by reverting to the appetites of the lower self and disobeying the command.

Moses struck a rock and twelve springs burst forth from it; yet more astonishing still is what the Prophet, ṣ.a.w.s., showed us, for water bursting forth from stone may sometimes be witnessed in certain places, whereas the Prophet, ṣ.a.w.s., caused water to spring forth from between his own noble fingers — and this has never been witnessed at all. This practice (sunna) of the prayer for rain remains with us to this day, whether the need be for crops, for livestock, or for people's drinking-water: the imam and the Muslims with him go out in a state of humility and abasement and perform the prayer of istisqāʾ, and God answers them.

Moses once asked for water on his people's behalf, and he remained a long while praying and supplicating, yet he was not answered. He said, "O Lord, we call upon You — more than three thousand of the righteous, all in need of what You have created — and yet You do not answer us." God said, "I have not answered you because among you is a talebearer (nammām), one who spreads slander among the people." Moses said, "O Lord, make him known to me." God said, "Were I to make him known to you, I would become like him myself, exposing a fault in him and doing the very thing I forbid — this would not be fitting." The next day, God revealed to Moses that the talebearer had died and that his bier was at the door of the mosque. Moses hastened to reach the funeral procession and learn who it was, but he found seventy biers there, God, the Blessed and Exalted, having concealed him.

"And when you said, O Moses, we cannot endure one kind of food." Likewise the Children of Israel in the wilderness, having grown weary of that life, claimed that they had grown weary of the food that descended from heaven, which was of a single kind, manna and quails. They lied: they had not grown weary of the food; they had grown weary only of that life of wandering. "Pray to your Lord for us, that He may bring forth for us something of what the earth produces — its herbs, its cucumbers, its garlic, its lentils, and its onions." These are things that grow only from tilled soil; they knew well that this was possible only if they returned to villages and towns, and this indeed was their true aim. Moses said to them, "Would you exchange what is better for what is meaner?" — that is, would you take the lesser in place of the more excellent? They said, "We want nothing but this." So Moses prayed to God, the Blessed and Exalted, and He, Exalted is He, said, "Go down to a city" — some city or other — "for you shall have what you asked for," of produce. So they went down to Jerusalem, or to Jericho, a town near Jerusalem, and they cultivated the land, and God provided them with these plants, and this remains their livelihood to this very day. "And abasement and wretchedness were stamped upon them" — dhilla being disgrace and humiliation, and maskana the mark of poverty, submissiveness, and ignominy: these are inseparable from them even when they are wealthy, just as a struck coin never loses the mark of its mint. You will never see a Jew but that you see in him the traces of poverty, abasement, and wretchedness, even if he is rich. "And they incurred anger from God" — that affliction was because they used to disbelieve the signs of God and slay the prophets — such as Zachariah and John — "without right," that is, unjustly, for the slaying of prophets can never be anything but unjust. In a single day they slew seventy prophets, and when three hundred of the righteous rose up to rebuke them for it, they slew these as well. "That was because they disobeyed and were transgressors" — that is, they overstepped the bounds in disobedience. This is part of what God tells us concerning their forebears, whom they used to praise as having been upright, yet this Qurʾān lays bare the corruption of their forefathers.

"Surely those who believe" — in the prophets — "and those of Jewry" — that is, the Jews — "and the Christians" — "and the Sabaeans" — a community between the Jews and the Christians — "whoever among them believes" — in God and the Last Day, in the time of our Prophet — "and does righteous deeds" — according to the sharīʿa of Muhammad, ṣ.a.w.s. — "for them is their reward," the recompense of their deeds, "with their Lord, and no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve." Whoever believes in the Prophet, ṣ.a.w.s., and holds fast to his sharīʿa is among the Muslims and among the friends of God (awliyāʾ Allāh), who shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve. There is no difference here between one origin and another, whether a person's origin be Christian, Jewish, Sabaean, or Zoroastrian: if he testifies to the shahāda and acts according to the sharīʿa of Muhammad, he is among the righteous servants of God.

And remember when We took your covenant and raised the Mount above you — We uprooted it from its very base when you refused to accept it — and We said, "Take hold, with strength, of what We have given you" — with diligence and effort — "and remember what is in it," that is, act according to what is in it, "that you may guard yourselves against evil." When Moses brought the Torah, containing as it did the obligations of command and prohibition, the licit and the illicit, the Children of Israel refused to act according to it. So Gabriel took hold of a mountain the size of their encampment — they numbered six hundred thousand — uprooting a mountain to their measure and raising it above them, declaring that if they did not act according to the Torah as God had commanded, the mountain would fall upon them and they would all perish. "Then you turned away after that" — they had accepted it only under duress, and a human being who accepts something under compulsion reverts to refusal whenever he is able to do so; having accepted it under duress, they apostatized from it afterward. "But for the bounty of God upon you, and His mercy" — in granting you repentance — "you would have been among the losers," the ruined. "And well you knew those among you who transgressed the Sabbath" — this too is among the corrupt deeds of their forefathers, whom they claimed had been righteous; among their forefathers also were the people of Eilat, in the time of David, upon him be peace, who transgressed the Sabbath, overstepping the bounds by fishing, which We had forbidden them. "We said to them, Be apes, despised" — so God destroyed them and turned them all into apes and swine, driven away. There had been one group that forbade the fishing and one group that fished: God destroyed the group that fished, as will be related in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, and delivered the group that had forbidden it; and the Qurʾān is silent concerning a third group. It is said that they perished together with those who perished, and it is said that they were delivered together with those who were delivered; but we understand from the Qurʾān that they perished with those who perished, for it is said of them, "they used not to forbid one another the wrongdoing they committed — evil indeed was what they used to do." God said to them, "Be apes, despised" — this being a command of contempt (taḥqīr) from God, the Blessed and Exalted.

The imperative form (fiʿl al-amr) in the Qurʾān occurs in fifteen distinct senses; this is the underlying principle, for not every imperative denotes strict obligation. The basic sense of the imperative is obligation (wujūb), yet in the Qurʾān it occurs in fifteen senses. There is the imperative of obligation, which is the basic sense, as in "Establish the prayer," the establishment of prayer being obligatory. There is the imperative of recommendation (nadb), as in "Write it down for them if you know some good in them," this being recommended. There is the imperative of permissibility (ibāḥa), as in "Go and hunt," which does not make hunting obligatory but merely permits it to us. There is the imperative of guidance (irshād), as when you say to your young child, "Eat from what is nearest to you," this being simple instruction for him. There is the imperative of calling to witness (ishhād), as in "and call witnesses when you make a contract of sale," which is not obligatory but is simply a matter of bearing witness. There is the imperative of contempt (taḥqīr), as in "Be apes, despised," which reduces them to the very species of apes. There is the imperative of degradation (ihāna), as in "Be stones or iron," meaning, I care nothing for you — a humiliation of them. There is the imperative of equivalence (taswiya), as in "Bear it patiently or do not bear it patiently, it is the same for you," patience and impatience being equal here. There is the imperative of warning (indhār), as in "Eat and enjoy yourselves for a while." There is the imperative of threat (tahdīd), as in "Do as you wish," meaning, you will perish. There is the imperative of wishing (tamannī), as the poet said, "O long night, will you not clear" — a mere wish. There is the imperative of supplication (duʿāʾ), as in "My Lord, forgive me," this being a request made of God, the Blessed and Exalted. And there is the imperative of honoring (ikrām), as in "Enter it in peace, secure," this imperative containing within it an honoring of the one addressed. All this makes clear that not everything God commands is thereby rendered obligatory: it may be obligatory, or recommended, or a matter of guidance, of threat, or of simple permissibility.

"And when you slew a soul and disputed among yourselves concerning it, and God brought forth what you had concealed." The commentators place this account before the narration of the wickedness of the Children of Israel: they had killed a man of theirs named ʿĀmīl, a wealthy man of great age, whose kinsmen grew impatient for him to die so that they might inherit from him; and when his death was delayed, they grew impatient and killed him. They took him by night, went off with him, slaughtered him, and cast him down beside a neighboring quarter; then in the morning they went about tracing his fate, until they came to that quarter and accused its people of having killed him. The people of the quarter denied it, so both parties came to Moses, upon him be prayer and peace, and asked him to reveal to them who had killed their slain kinsman. They said, "We ask you to pray to God that He may reveal to us his killer." Moses said to them, "God commands you to sacrifice a cow" — that is, to slaughter a cow. God said, "And when Moses said to his people, God commands you to sacrifice a cow, they said, Do you take us in mockery?" — We ask you to reveal to us the killer of our slain kinsman, and you command us to slaughter a cow! "He said, I take refuge" — I seek protection — "in God, lest I be among the ignorant" — the mockers, for none mocks save one who is ignorant, and I seek refuge in God from ignorance. When they realized that this was Moses's firm resolve — and had they taken any cow at all and slaughtered it, they would have found what they sought — they made it difficult for themselves, and so God made it difficult for them. "They said, Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what she is" — that is, her age. Moses said, "He" — God — "says she is a cow neither old nor virgin."

"But of a middling age between the two" — so do as you are commanded regarding her slaughter. They pressed further still, saying, "Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us her colour." He said, "He says she is a bright yellow cow, intensely yellow, pleasing to those who behold her" — that is, delighting them by her beauty. They said, "Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what she is: does she graze freely, or is she put to labour? The cows" — that is, cattle of this kind — "are all alike to us," on account of their great number, so that we have not been guided to the one intended; "but if God wills, we shall be guided" to her. In the ḥadīth it is related: "Had they not made that exception, it would never have been made plain to them, ever" — for when they said, "if God wills," by the blessing of that phrase the answer then came, and they were guided to what was sought. He said, "He says she is a cow not broken," not tamed for labour "to plough the earth," turning it over for cultivation, "or to water the tillage," the land prepared for sowing — "sound," free of blemish and the marks of toil, "with no" other colour "upon her." They said, "Now you have brought the truth" — that is, now you have made clear to us what you meant. So they sought her out and found her in the possession of a youth most dutiful to his mother, and they bought her for the equivalent of her hide filled with gold.

There had once been a righteous man who died, leaving behind a young son and nothing else but a cow. He went to the forest and said, "O Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I entrust to You this cow of mine; when my son comes of age, deliver it to him." The boy grew up righteous and dutiful to his mother: when day came he would gather firewood, and when he brought the firewood he would sell it and divide its price into three portions — one portion for himself to spend, one he would give to his mother, and one he would give in charity; and when night came he would divide his time likewise into three portions — one for sleep, one to sit with his mother, and one to devote to the worship of God, the Blessed and Exalted — until his mother, moved with tenderness for him, said to him, "Go to the forest, for your father entrusted a cow for you there to the Lord of Abraham. When you come to the forest, say, O Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, deliver to me my cow." So when he came to the forest he said this, and the cow came to him and said, "Ride me." He said, "No — my mother did not command me to ride you."