Texts of Islam

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Moses: The Marriage of Jethro's Daughter and Moses

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This is an Islamic religious narrative text, likely a tafsir or exegesis, retelling the Quranic and hadith accounts of Moses's years in Midian — his marriage to Jethro's (Shu'ayb's) daughter Zipporah (Sofayrâ'), his service as shepherd, and his divine calling at the burning bush. The text's central argument is that Moses did marry the daughter of the prophet Shu'ayb, affirming this through Quranic verses (Al-Qasas 26-28) and traditions attributed to the Household of Muhammad (Ahlul Bayt), positioning this as settled Islamic scholarly consensus rather than an open question. It includes distinctive narrative details not found in the Quran itself, such as Moses's staff having belonged to Noah and Abraham and miraculously leaping into his hand from a storehouse of prophets' staffs, and a miracle involving piebald sheep multiplying supernaturally. The text explicitly navigates the tension between Quranic and Torah accounts, noting that the Arabic name Shu'ayb and the Hebrew Jethro may or may not refer to the same figure, and flagging where Muslim and Biblical traditions diverge rather than flattening the difference. A reader interested in Islamic storytelling traditions around Moses, or in how Islamic scholarship harmonizes Quranic narrative with earlier Biblical material while asserting its own interpretive authority, will find this text directly useful.

The Prophets, Their Lives and Their Stories: Moses: The Marriage of Jethro's Daughter and Moses

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