The Quran

143

Preface

وَلَمّا جاءَ موسىٰ لِميقاتِنا وَكَلَّمَهُ رَبُّهُ قالَ رَبِّ أَرِني أَنظُر إِلَيكَ ۚ قالَ لَن تَراني وَلٰكِنِ انظُر إِلَى الجَبَلِ فَإِنِ استَقَرَّ مَكانَهُ فَسَوفَ تَراني ۚ فَلَمّا تَجَلّىٰ رَبُّهُ لِلجَبَلِ جَعَلَهُ دَكًّا وَخَرَّ موسىٰ صَعِقًا ۚ فَلَمّا أَفاقَ قالَ سُبحانَكَ تُبتُ إِلَيكَ وَأَنا أَوَّلُ المُؤمِنينَ

Yusuf Ali

When Moses came to the place appointed by Us, and his Lord addressed him, He said: “O my Lord! show (Thyself) to me, that I may look upon Thee.”¹ God said: “By no means canst thou see Me (direct); But look upon the mount; if it abide in its place, then shalt thou see Me.”² When his Lord manifested His glory on the Mount, He made it as dust. And Moses fell down in a swoon. When he recovered his senses he said: “Glory be to Thee! to Thee I turn in repentance, and I am the first to believe.”³

Even the best of us may be betrayed into overweening confidence or spiritual ambition not yet justified by the stage we have reached. Moses had already seen part of the glory of God in his Radiant White Hand, that shone with the glory of Divine light (7:108, n. 1076). But he was still in the flesh, and the mission to his people was to begin after the Covenant of Sinai. It was premature of him to ask to see God.
But God-the Cherisher of all His creatures-treats even our improper requests with mercy, compassion, and understanding. Even the reflected glory of God is too great for the grosser substance of matter. The peak on which it shone became as powder before the ineffable glory, and Moses could only live by being taken out of his bodily senses. When he recovered from his swoon, he saw the true position, and the distance between our grosser bodily senses and the true splendour of God’s glory. He at once turned in penitence to God, and confessed his faith. Having been blinded by the excessive Glory, he could not see with the physical eye. But he could get a glimpse of the reality through faith, and he hastened to proclaim his faith, (Cf. 59:21). (R).
“First to believe.” Cf, the expression “first of those who bow to God in Islam” in 6:14 and 6:163. “First” means here not the first in time, but most zealous in faith. It has the intensive and not the comparative meaning.