PLAGUES OF EGYPT

The following references occur to the ten plagues of Egypt in the Qurʾān. Sūrah viii. 127–135 : “Already had we chastised the people of Pharaoh with dearth and scarcity of fruits, that haply they might take warning: and when good fell to their lot they said, ‘This is our due.’ But if ill befell them, they regarded Moses and his partizans as (the birds) of ill omen. Yet , was not their evil omen from God? But most of them knew it not. And they said, ‘Whatever sign thou bring us for our enchantment, we will not believe on thee. ’ And we sent upon them the flood and the locusts and the qummal (lice) and the frogs and the blood,—clear signs—but they behaved proudly, and were a sinful people. And when any plague fell upon them, they said, ‘O Moses! pray for us to thy Lord, according to that which he hath covenanted with thee: Truly if thou take off the plague from us, we will surely believe thee, and will surely send the children of Israel with thee.’ But when we had taken off the plague from them, and the time which God had granted them had expired, behold! they broke their promise. Therefore we took vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea, because they treated our signs as falsehoods and were heedle of them. And we gave to the people who had been brought so low, the eastern and the western lands, which we had ble ed as an heritage: and the good word of thy Lord was fulfilled on the children of Israel because they had borne up with patience: and we destroyed the works and the structures of Pharaoh and his people: And we brought the children of Israel acro the sea, and they came to a people who gave themselves up to their idols. They said, ‘O Moses! make us a god, as they have gods.’ He said, ‘Verily, ye are an ignorant people: for the worship they practice will be destroyed, and that which they do is vanity!’ ” In the Sūrah xvii. 103–104 , they are referred to as “nine clear signs,” which some commentators understand to be the commandments of Moses. “We heretofore gave to Moses nine clear signs. Ask thou, therefore, the children of Israel how it was when he came unto them, and Pharaoh said to him, ‘Verily, I deem thee, O Moses, a man enchanted.’ “Said Moses, ‘Thou knowest that none hath sent down these clear signs but the Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth; and I surely deem thee, O Pharaoh, a person lost.’ ” Mr. Sale, translating from the Jalālān and al-Baiẓāwī, says: “These were, the changing his rod into a serpent, the making his hand white and shining, the producing locusts, lice, frogs, and blood, the dividing of the Red Sea, the bringing water out of the rock, and the shaking of Mount Sinai over the children of Israel. In lieu of the three last, some reckon the inundation of the Nile, the blasting of the corn and scarcity of the fruits of the earth. These words, however, are interpreted by others not of nine miracles, but of nine commandments, which Moses gave his people, and were thus numbered up by Muhammad himself to a Jew, who asked him the question, viz. That they should not be guilty of idolatry, nor steal, nor commit adultery or murder, nor practise sorcery or usury, nor accuse an innocent man to take away his life, or a modest woman of whoredom, nor desert the army, to which he added the observing of the Sabbath as a tenth commandment, but which peculiarly regarded the Jews, upon which answer, it is said, the Jew ki ed the Prophet’s hand and feet.”