Mos18

This is an Islamic religious-narrative text in the *qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ* (Stories of the Prophets) tradition, drawing on the scholar Al-Thaʿlabī and citing the Quran, that retells the Israelite spying mission to Canaan and the subsequent forty-year wilderness punishment. The central narrative follows Moses selecting twelve tribal chieftains as spies who discover a land of giants; ten break their oath of secrecy, spread fear among the Israelites, and trigger a mass refusal to enter Canaan — leaving only Joshua and Caleb faithful. A distinctively folkloric element is the extended treatment of ʿŪj ibn ʿAnāq (here ʿIwaj ben ʿInāq), a legendary giant said to have lived three thousand years, survived Noah's Flood with water only reaching his knees, and been slain when Moses — himself ten cubits tall — jumped ten cubits and struck only the giant's foot. The author explicitly distances himself from the more extravagant claims about ʿŪj's size, noting they "bear no fruit to discuss," while still preserving them as part of the tradition. The text closes by weaving in two Quranic verses (Al-Māʾidah 25–26 and Al-Baqarah 47) to frame the forty-year wandering as divine punishment and the eventual conquest as divine fulfillment, drawing a homiletic lesson about God's simultaneous justice and mercy toward the Israelites.

Mos18

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