Page 74 - Passivity in Religion

PASSIVITY IN RELIGION

was happening among his people, "He said, 'We tried your peo-
ple after you left and the Samaritan has misguided them.'"
(Surah Ta Ha, 85), at which point Prophet Musa (as) returned to
them. In the Qur'an, Allah then tells us what happened:
… He [Musa] said, "My people, did not your Lord make
you a handsome promise? Did the fulfillment of the con-
tract seem too long to you or did you want to unleash your
Lord's anger upon yourselves, so you broke your promise
to me?" They said, "We did not break our promise to you of
our own volition. But we were weighed down with the
heavy loads of the people's jewelry and we threw them in,
for that is what the Samaritan did." Then he produced a
calf for them, a physical form which made a lowing sound.
So they said, "This is your god—and Musa's god as well,
but he forgot." (Surah Ta Ha, 86-88)
As we can see, the people answered that they did not willingly
break their promise, but acted under the influence of Samaritan.
Led by his perverse suggestions, they abandoned their faith, and
made for themselves a statue of a calf. We can read in the Qur'an
that this Samaritan was a man who obeyed his base inner desires:
He [Samaritan] said, "I saw what they did not see. So I
gathered up a handful from the messenger's footprints and
threw it in. That is what my inner self urged me to do."
(Surah Ta Ha, 96)
Because this group was not sufficiently conscientious, they al-
lowed themselves to be influenced by the suggestions of one
man; as a result, they renounced their devotion to Allah, and
lapsed into the perversity of worshipping the statue of a calf
which they had fashioned themselves. But, when Prophet Musa
(as) returned, he helped them understand what they had done.
Another transgression committed by the people of Prophet
Musa (as) took place after Allah brought them across the sea,

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