RECORD OF HARÛN [AARON] AND THE LORD MÛSA [MOSES] WHO SPOKE WITH ALLAH,* TO WHOM BE GREETING AND SALUTATION.

The lord Mûsa and his brother Harûn were two of the greatest prophets, and of those near to the mansion of the Lord God the Most High and Magnificent: their high dignity is beyond all explanation, and surpasses the powers of any attempts at elucidation.

The narrative about the Fara’anites of Egypt, after the decease of Yusuf the veracious, and the circumstances of the appearance of the two above - named exalted indi­viduals, is, according to the traditions of chroniclers, as follows: When Riân, the son of Valeed, departed from this world to the next, one of the sons of his uncles, Qabûs by name, ascended the throne of royalty, and took his seat with unlimited powers upon the couch of dominion. He revived the customs of infidelity and error that had been suppressed during the government of Riân, and all the Egyptians adopted them again. When this king per­ceived that the children of Ya’qûb were loath to accept this blamable religion, and were unwilling to tread upon this bare road, he reduced all the children of Esrâil to slavery, telling them that they had been the servants and bondsmen of his relatives, and that they were bound to worship what his family worshipped. He considered the decease of Yusuf and of his brethren, which was [only] a necessary sequence of the limited nature of human life, as a good opportunity to increase their burdens, and to impose upon them tasks beyond their strength, so that the lives of the sons of Esrâil became during the reign of Qabûs unfortunate and miserable; and when he departed from this perishable and deceitful abode to that of wailing and perdition, his brother the Fara’ûn [who reigned during the time] of Mûsa, surnamed Valeed Bin Masa’b, governed Egypt. At this time the white cocks, the cessation of whose crowing Yusuf had predicted, became mute. When the sons of Esrâil perceived this sign, they submitted with resigned hearts to the prolongation of the times of misery, became certain of the increase of affliction, resolved to remain patient, and tried to console each other. This Fara’ûn was entirely void of the splendour of divine aid,* and much more tyrannical than the preceding Fara’ûns. After he had imposed heavy tasks upon the sons of Esrâil, he compelled even their women and decrepit persons to pay tribute. During the first five years of his reign he forced the people to worship idols and to adore statues. When he saw that his authority had become paramount in all directions, he convoked an assembly, in which he raised the cry: ‘I am Lord Most High!’ He then invited the people of Egypt to abandon the worship of idols and statues, and to adore his own person. He congregated all the descendants of Ya’qûb and said to them: ‘Worship me, and I shall deliver you from all your troubles; but if you refuse and are proud, I shall afflict you with more grievous punishments than ever.’ The children of Esrâil rejected his proposal, and did not trangress the law of their fathers and ancestors. Therefore Fara’ûn employed their strong men to bring stones from the mountains, to do heavy work, to trade, and the like. The weak he compelled to work as day-labourers, and everyone was bound to deliver the wages of his day’s work at sunset into the treasury; and the unfortunate labourer who failed to do so after the sun had set, had his hand fettered to his neck during one month. All the thoughts of that accursed tyrant were constantly engaged in planning new stratagems how to injure the children of Esrâil. During these times he dreamt one night that a fire was arriving from the direction of Syria, and that it consumed the fortified places, castles, houses, and the country of the Egyptians, leaving no traces whatever of either towns or villages. Fara’ûn quaked at the thought of the realization of his dream, awoke, and called for interpreters and soothsayers, to whom he related it; whereon they replied: ‘The interpretation is, that an individual of the sons of Esrâil will be [divinely] sent, and will receive plenary powers to extirpate the Qabats.* He will make strenuous efforts to subvert and destroy the fortress of the reigning dynasty.’ Fara’ûn therefore appointed midwives over all pregnant women, and ordered them to slay every male infant* who might protrude his head from the window of the invisible world. In that way innumerable children were murdered:

Distich:

A hundred thousand children got their heads cut off Until he who spoke with God became a seer.

When five years had elapsed in this manner, the plague broke out among the children of Esrâil, which carried off infinite multitudes of people. Then the Qabat inhabitants waited upon Fara’ûn to complain, that as the men of the sons of Esrâil were dying of pestilence, and their children were being killed, that nation would soon become extir­pated, and all the hard and difficult work would again fall upon the Qabats. These reasons were considered valid by Fara’ûn, but in the height of his folly he ordered the children to be [alternately] killed one year, and to be spared one year. Harûn was born during a year of respite, and Mûsa—u. w. b., etc.—saw the light of the world in a year when the infants were killed.

It is said the astrologers and soothsayers had informed Fara’ûn that the promised child would come forth from the town of Eskanderia. He asked them how the event might be obviated, and they replied: ‘The men of the town must be separated from the women, because we have learnt that during this night the [seed productive of the] infant will be fixed in the mother’s womb.’ Therefore, Fara’ûn caused heralds to proclaim the following order: ‘All ye children of Esrâil must leave the city and go to the desert; for the king has pardoned your crimes, and intends to bestow upon you royal favours.’ The children of Esrâil, pleased with this news, issued from the town with their young and old people. Fara’ûn himself, however, deter­mined to proceed that night to Eskanderia, and to have connection with his spouse, Asia, the daughter of Murâhum, who was of the children of Esrâil; hoping that in this manner the blessed child of propitious advent might possibly be the offspring of his own loins. With this idea in his head, taking E’mrân the father of Mûsa, who was one of his courtiers, along with him to Eskanderia, he alighted at the castle, but left E’mrân at the gate. When the night had set in, the women approached in their promenade the gate of the castle of Fara’ûn, and the mother of Mûsa happened to be among them. On that occasion E’mrân was overpowered by lust, retained his spouse, had connection with her that night, and she became pregnant with Mûsa.

Ebn A’bbâs says that not a prophet issues from the loins of his father, without his star making its appearance in the sky. After the mother of Mûsa had become pregnant, the astrologers discovered the star of his lordship the speaker [with Allah], whereon they raised a shout in the plain in which the children of Esrâil had taken up their position, and sent its reverberations to the zenith of the heavens. When Fara’ûn heard it he became terrified, went to the castle-gate and inquired of E’mrân the cause of it, ask­ing him what noise it was? E’mrân replied: ‘I think the children of Esrâil are so pleased with your kindness and favours, that they are shouting in the exuberance of their joy.’ Fara’ûn now returned to his palace, but could not sleep the whole night, on account of the fear which had taken possession of him.

It is related that when the mother of Mûsa had become pregnant with that blessed child, there was a midwife appointed over each enceinte woman, except over the mother of Mûsa, who escaped this surveillance because her interesting condition had not been discovered. When Mûsa was born, his mother summoned a carpenter to make a box, and to his inquiry for the reason she replied: ‘I have had a child which died, and now I want a coffin for it.’ The carpenter, who entertained suspicions, went to the slayers of the infants to make inquiries, but by [the decree of] fate his tongue refused to obey, so that he was unable to utter a single word, and despite the signs he made to these men, they were unable to understand what he wanted; accordingly they insulted and drove him away. The carpenter imagined that probably this child might be the prophet who was [predestinated] to exterminate the Qabats, whereon the casket of his heart became illuminated by the light of monotheism and of religion, so that he made a coffin, and delivered it to the mother of Mûsa. She first suckled the child, placed collyrium upon his eyes, filled the box with cotton, smeared it with liquid pitch, put Mûsa into it, and placed it in the river Nile.*

The arrangers of the gems of narratives have threaded the words of pearls as follows: ‘Fara’ûn had a daughter who was afflicted with the disease of leprosy, but the assembly of physicians informed him that this complaint would be removed by the saliva of a living being of human shape, which would make its appearance in the river Nile, during the reign of Fara’ûn. The latter then spread on the banks of the Nile the surface of pomp and grandeur, and erected the dome of a palace, rising to the utmost height, like the sun and moon. When the mother of Mûsa had thrown that sea of grace into the river Nile, the element of water carried the box, by the mandate of the Beneficent Sovereign, among the trees that were near the mansion of Fara’ûn. When the female attendants of Fara’ûn’s daughter, who were waiting for the fulfilment of the promise made by the soothsayers, beheld that coffin, they were filled with astonishment, and carried it to the spouse of Fara’ûn. Asia then opened the top thereof, and perceived a light shining from it, and discovered a lovely babe sucking its own thumb. The daughter of Fara’ûn then rubbed some of the saliva of his blessed mouth on the leprous spot, and was cured of her malady. She named the infant Mûsa, because in the Hebrew language this word means water and trees [sic]. The Lord and changer of hearts inspired the mother and the daughter with love for Mûsa; they brought the box to Fara’ûn, in whose heart the tree of affection struck root, and emitted copious branches on his beholding the countenance of Mûsa. When the grandees of the realm heard what had happened, they said to Fara’ûn: “This is the very child which will become the cause of the destruction of thy reign; his extermination ought not to be delayed, in order that the kingdom may be preserved from perdition.” The spouse of Fara’ûn, however, manifested a desire that the infant’s life be spared, saying: “[This child] is a delight of the eye to me and to thee; kill him not, peradventure it may happen that he will be serviceable unto us, or we may adopt him for our own son.”* Fara’ûn accordingly spared the life of the boy, and presented him to his foster-sister. Then Asia appointed nurses to suckle Mûsa, but he refused to take the nipple of any of them into his mouth, until he was at last given in charge of his own mother,* whose milk he immediately began to suck with great delight. There­fore Asia hired the mother of Mûsa for the stipend and emoluments usual in such cases, ordering her to make her appearance once every week at the castle, with that plant from the rose-grove of love.’

Some assert that Mûsa was not separated from his mother more than one day and one night. It is said that after the expiration of one year, Asia conveyed Mûsa to the presence of Fara’ûn, who took him into his arms and caressed him, whereon his lordship suddenly stretched out his hand and took hold of the moustache of Fara’ûn—which act is con­sidered extremely uncivil—pulled it with such force that he extracted a few hairs, and chuckled most joyfully. Fara’ûn became enraged at this [boldness], and ordered Mûsa to be punished; but Asia, who was one of the most intelligent women in the world, said: ‘O king, the acts of little ones have no weight in the scales of understanding; infants cannot be subjected to the requirements of good manners, or to chastisement for transgressing them; [never­theless] according to my opinion the child ought to be tried, and to be punished if found guilty, or else excused.’ Therefore one plate full of rubies was produced, and another filled with burning coals, for the purpose of examining Mûsa. Both the dishes having been placed before him, he was about to touch the rubies; Jebrâil, however, impeded him, and turned his hand towards the coals, one of which the child took up and placed in his mouth, so that a blister appeared on his blessed tongue. Some historians have related that Mûsa pronounced [in this trial] every letter of the alphabet, excepting only the letter Sin,* and that for this reason Fara’ûn remitted his punishment, but commanded his nurse not to bring him any more. His mother obeyed this order, and retained him till his noble age amounted to fourteen years. Then Asia took charge of him, and appointed four hundred slaves, with gold-embroidered dresses, crowns set in jewels, silver necklaces and golden belts, for the service of Mûsa, and for attending upon him whenever he went out. On account of this great pomp, all the inhabitants considered him to be the son of Fara’ûn. When he attained the age of thirty, Asia gave him in marriage to a noble Qabat lady, with whom he begat two children. On the occasion of the nuptials, as well as at the birth of the children, the usages customary with sovereigns were performed, and most of the people gave themselves up to great rejoicings and pleasures. By the help and efforts of Asia, Mûsa was day by day more con­firmed on the throne of nobility and dignity, until the time of his separation from the company of Fara’ûn approached, and they were severed from each other.