History of the Israel
Abraham (peace be upon him) died in the city of Hebron, Palestine, and the prophethood was transferred to Isaac (peace be upon him). From now on, we are seeking to find the roots of the emergence of the Children of Israel and their continuity in history, and until the end of this study, we will not go to Mecca. The history of Mecca in the Quran begins from the time when the history of the Children of Israel and their mission, from the perspective of the Quran, has ended. God gives Isaac (peace be upon him) a son in Palestine who is called Jacob. His other name is Israel. In the Torah, Israel means the ship-bearer and the one who is victorious over God ; but the truth is that Israel in Syriac and Hebrew means the servant of God.
The Quran calls the story of Jacob (peace be upon him) and his son Joseph (peace be upon him) the best of stories:
We narrate to you the best of stories by what We have revealed to you, this Quran. The story of Joseph (peace be upon him) has also been mentioned in previous books and historical books, but none of them are similar in terms of the way it is narrated in the Quran. If the word story is a noun, it means a story, but if it is a verb, it means a way of telling, and in this case, the meaning is: And We narrate to you the story in the best of ways.
So the description of the best could be for this story because it contains lessons, wisdom, tips, and wonders that are not found elsewhere; also, the best may mean the unique expression and wonderful style of the Quran in this story. Jacob (peace be upon him) had twelve sons, one of whom was Joseph (peace be upon him), and his father loved him very much, so much so that his brothers became jealous of him and thought of getting him out of the way. In consultation, they came to the conclusion that they should not kill him, but should somehow remove him from that area. Jacob’s (peace be upon him) sons were religious and monotheistic, but they were jealous.Â
Palestine is located on the Mediterranean Sea. To the north of the Mediterranean is the Roman region, to the south is Africa, and to the west is the Middle East. This sea is one of the economic regions of the world. Caravans traveling from Rome to Africa and Egypt passed through Palestine. Along the way, they had created reservoirs to collect rainwater and use it for the caravans. Joseph’s brothers, peace be upon him, decided to throw him into one of these reservoirs so that the caravans and trade caravans would take him with them. So, under the pretext of playing, they asked their father for permission to take Joseph out with them. He said,
I am afraid that the wolf will eat him, and you are oblivious to him.  And he said: If you take him away, I will be sad, and I am afraid that you will neglect him and the wolf will eat him. They said: With this strong group that we are, if the wolf eats him, we will be among the losers.
In fact, by saying this, Jacob (peace be upon him) taught them not to kill him, but to separate him from his father in some other way. Since his father himself had said that he might be eaten by a wolf, he would have easily accepted this lie.
So they went to him and gathered together to make him in the absence of al-Jub, and at that time let us prophesy to them about this and that. They didn’t feel it, and their fathers came to have dinner, and they were crying. So all of them are Al-Zaib and us. You are a believer for us, and even if you were true, and you came on the shirt of a false blood, he said, Yes, I asked you, I will give you my life. So they took him and agreed to throw him into the dark depth of his well ; [because he fell to the bottom of the well] We revealed to him that you will make them aware of their actions and they will not know. At night, they returned to their father crying.
They said: O father, we had gone out riding and had left Joseph with our goods, and the wolf ate him. And even if we tell the truth, you do not believe us. And they brought his garment that was stained with false blood. [Jacob] said: Your souls have made a matter seem good to you. Now for me, patience is better, and it is God who should be sought for help in this matter.
The caravan pulled Joseph (peace be upon him) out of the well and took him to Egypt. The family of Prophet Jacob (peace be upon him) does not have a government in the Palestinian region; rather, they only have a settlement; they are a religious family that preaches monotheism. In the course of events, Joseph (peace be upon him) became the Minister of Economic Affairs of Egypt. Years later, a widespread famine occurred, and the children of Jacob (peace be upon him) came to Egypt to get provisions. Joseph (peace be upon him) recognized the brothers and kept them with a trick and brought his father to Egypt as well. The family of Jacob (peace be upon him) and his children (the Children of Israel) were thus transferred to Egypt.
The Israelites’ first experience of governance
Joseph (peace be upon him) became the head of the Egyptian government. The Egyptians were polytheists, but they accepted Joseph (peace be upon him), who was a monotheist, for several reasons: first, that he had saved them from famine; second, that he was very skilled and no one had any objections to his work and management; third, that Joseph (peace be upon him) was extremely beautiful. The beauty of a ruler was and is very important to the people.
The Israelites, who had become the ruling family of Egypt, were a religious people in that region. But they had no experience in government. Egypt was the beginning of their experience in government. Bureaucracy among the Israelites began here. They wrote down matters and noted down the characteristics of their lineage. Therefore, the roots of Jewish apprenticeship and the starting point of their experience were in the reign of Joseph (peace be upon him).
The Israelites propagated religion during the reign of Joseph (peace be upon him). In the last moments of his life, Hazrat Yaqoob (peace be upon him) gathered them together and said:
Are you martyred in the presence of Yaqoob’s death, and he said to the children, What do you worship after those who said? When Jacob’s death came, and he said to his children: What will happen after me? Do you worship? They said: We will worship your God and the God of your ancestors Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, one God, and to Him we submit.
Jacob (peace be upon him) was concerned that his children would go astray in that government. When Jacob (peace be upon him) passed away, Joseph (peace be upon him) took his body to the region of Syria and buried him next to the grave of Khalil-ur-Rahman.
When the Israelites entered Egypt, they were in the minority; but since they were a ruling family, they expanded their lineage to become a majority. At the end of his life, Joseph (peace be upon him) gathered the elders of his people and, after praising and glorifying God, announced the difficult future that they would face after him: from the killing of men, the disembowelment of pregnant women, and the slaughter of children, until God would manifest the truth through a rebel from the descendants of Levi, son of Jacob; he was a tall, wheat-colored man. Joseph (peace be upon him) recounted his characteristics to them and in his will warned them that since they were the children of Israel and a group of believers with a single and organized identity and, in addition, they had gained experience in ruling. The polytheist Pharaohs were afraid of them. Therefore, they put them in a difficult situation, and they had to wait for their savior to save them. Prophet Joseph (peace be upon him) passed away, and the savior of the hope of the Israelites was awaited. Therefore, after Prophet Joseph (peace be upon him), the Children of Israel made efforts in three areas:
1- Maintaining the identity
of this religious and pious group. They tried to maintain their religious identity by avoiding polytheism.
2- Population growth
to the point where it does not dissolve in water like salt;
3- Waiting for a Savior
They were waiting for a Savior to free them from the precarious situation in Egypt and to move them on the path of the historical responsibility of leading the religion of God, which was their responsibility.
Four hundred years of waiting
All of Joseph’s (peace be upon him) words came true. Egypt fell into the hands of the Pharaohs, and the Pharaohs attacked the Children of Israel in the three directions mentioned above :
1- Cultural invasion of the religious identity of the Israelites
The Pharaohs tried to humiliate the Israelites and keep them so immature that if the promised advent came true, they would not be suitable for him and would be in a position where they would not be useful to him. Therefore, the Israelites were to distance themselves from technical and managerial matters. For this reason, they even took away the management of the family from them, and although the Israelites’ household lived under the management of a Pharaoh, the Israelites were forced to do menial and difficult tasks such as brickmaking and flower planting, serving children and serving as waiters and servants in the Pharaoh’s houses; in short, slavery. Their inefficiency led to the fact that when the mother of Moses (peace be upon him) wanted to put him in a chest and throw him into the grave, there was not a single person among the Israelites who could build a chest. She had no choice but to order a Coptic carpenter to build the chest.
2- Control of the Children of Israel
The Pharaonic system required that the women of the Children of Israel be under the care of Egyptian midwives. Every pregnant woman of the Children of Israel had to give birth under the supervision of an Egyptian (Coptic) midwife. If the number of boys exceeded a certain limit, they were killed; if it was a girl, she was returned to her mother.
3- Dealing with the promised one
The Pharaohs had two approaches to prevent the fulfillment of the promised story: dealing with the waiting ones and searching for the waiting one and dealing with him.
The Pharaohs tried to find and kill the waiting one. Since it was not known when he would be born and whose son he was, they used the information that had been spread among the Israelites. That information was the signs of the advent. The Israelites endured the pressures while waiting for the promised one to appear. Waiting was a factor of stability and endurance for them, and the prophets of the Israelites always maintained this level of expectation by telling them the signs of the advent. People were on the verge of despair. Hearing the signs of the advent gave them hope. The Pharaohs approached this realm with the information they obtained from their spies among the Israelites. Another way to reach the waiting one was to take advantage of the obedience of the soothsayers and astrologers. The future could be predicted from the conditions of the stars, but it could not be changed. The Pharaohs, in this way, had obtained the time of the birth of the Savior of the Israelites
. Moreover, Pharaoh had dreamed that a flame had risen from Jerusalem and fallen into the houses of the Egyptians, setting them on fire. The magicians, priests, soothsayers, and astrologers had all interpreted this dream as the birth of a son of the Israelites who would overthrow Pharaoh’s rule.
To be continued…
