105 Preface حَقيقٌ عَلىٰ أَن لا أَقولَ عَلَى اللَّهِ إِلَّا الحَقَّ ۚ قَد جِئتُكُم بِبَيِّنَةٍ مِن رَبِّكُم فَأَرسِل مَعِيَ بَني إِسرائيلَYusuf AliOne for whom it is right to say nothing but truth about God. Now have I come unto you (people), from1 your Lord, with a clear (Sign): So let the Children of Israel depart along with me.”Notice that Moses, in addressing Pharaoh and the Egyptians, claims his mission to be not from his God, or his people’s God but from “your Lord,” from “the Lord of the Worlds,” And his mission is not to his people only: “I come unto you (Egyptian people) from your Lord.” The spirit of our version is entirely different from the spirit of the same story as told in the Old Testament, (Exod. chapters 1-15). In Exod. 3:18, the mission of Moses is expressed to be as from “the Lord God of the Hebrews.” The essence of the whole Islamic story is this: Joseph’s sufferings and good fortune were not merely a story in a romance. Joseph was a prophet; his sufferings and his subsequent rise to power and position in Egypt were to be a lesson (a) to his wicked brothers who sold him into slavery, (b) to his people who were stricken with famine and found a welcome in Egypt, and (c) to the Egyptians, who were arrogant over their high material civilisation, but had yet to be taught the pure faith of Abraham. Israel prospered in Egypt, and stayed there perhaps two to four centuries. (Renan allows only one century). Times changed, and the racial bigotry of the Egyptians showed its head again, and Israel was oppressed. Moses was raised up with a threefold mission again (a) to learn all the learning of the Egyptians and preach God’s Truth to them as one who had been brought up among themselves, (b) to unite and reclaim his own people, and (c) to rescue them and lead them to a new world, which was to open out their spiritual horizon and lead them to the Psalms of David and the glories of Solomon.