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Olde Tyme Religion
Preacher's Moses story controversial in Egypt
2009-09-01
[Al Arabiya Latest] Popular Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled is at the center of a controversy over an episode on his popular Quran program that discussed the story of Moses and allegedly linked it to current events and aroused sympathy for Jews.

In the program Min Qasas al-Quran (Stories of the Quran), which has aired on several satellite channels since Ramadan began, Khaled discussed how the Pharaohs slayed male Jews during the time of Moses. The famous preacher prepared the story earlier this year and posted it on his website in May with questions that he asked visitors to respond to.

"Think about these questions," he wrote on the website. "You will not find their answers in any book. They just need brains and imagination."
Think for themselves instead of being told what they should think? Shocking!
Among the questions posted were those asking: Why did the Pharaoh order male Jews to be killed? What do you think was Moses' political goal? Was it saving the Israelites or talking the Pharaoh into believing in God? Why didn't Moses call upon Egyptians to join his faith?
Why would Moses have called upon Egyptians to join his faith? I'm confused.
The responses were remarkable because the majority linked the story of Moses to the current political situation in Egypt and viewed it as an incentive to rebel against repressive leaders.
Interestingly, they don't seem to have linked it to an Egyptian law passed after 1948, that made it illegal for Egyptian Jewish males to be in the country after their eighteenth birthday, or to when the Egyptian Jewish community, dating back to several centuries before Christ, ceased to exist. Just as the Pharaoh had intended in that long-ago time.
Posted by:Fred

#2  fwiw

there are many, many references to Moses (Musa) in the Koran

the first bunch are in chapt 2 (dealing with the giving of the 10 commandments and other experiences in the desert)

chapter 28 of the koran deals with (among other things) Moses in Egypt; much of it is from the bible but also there is a lot taken from post biblical midrash
Posted by: lord garth   2009-09-01 15:17  

#1  "Why would Moses have called upon Egyptians to join his faith? I'm confused"

because about the biggest difference between Judaism and Islam, which are both austere monotheism with a commmitment to a religious law that weaves together the religious and the secular, is that Islam believes in proselytizing the world, and Judaism believes in living apart as a holy nation. Muslims beleive Moses was an early muslim prophet - presumably this preacher is saying that, on the surface Moses (as a muslim) should have been more focused on the conversion of Egypt than on the escape of the Jews.

Im not sure, but he may be saying that its less important to convert Mubarak (to democracy? to Islam?) than it is to escape from Mubaraks rule.

You could see how that would be controversial. That, incidentally, he reminds folks that the (preMedina, and indeed, pre Christ) Jews are good guys in Islam, would seem to contoversial only to the most bigoted Egyptians. But there seems to be no shortage of such bigots in Egypt.

Fred - of course, from the religious POV, Egypt is the LAST place Jews should live - Jeremiah, IIRC, specifically warned against fleeing there after the babylonian conquest - partly thats due to the story of Exodus - dont go back to the land you were specifically delivered from - it was also political - Egypt had been aligned with Assyria - to flee to Egypt was to make common cause with the faction in Judea that most feared the Babylonians, but had been okay with the Assyrians - the Assyrians and their attempt to make themselves, not God, the center of Judean loyalty, were particularly hateful to the prophets. Whereas the Babylonian conquest was a divine punishment, to be borne.
Posted by: liberal hawk   2009-09-01 15:06  

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