The Story of The Israelites' Cow
Verses 67 to 73 of Surah al-Baqarah point to this story.
The story goes like this: Someone was murdered by Moses' enemies and his body was thrown at the prophet’s door. They accused Moses of killing him and said: If you are innocent, ask your God to reveal the murderer to us. Moses said: God commands you to slaughter a cow and touch its meat to the corpse, and then he will come back to life and name his killer. They said: Are you joking with us? He said: This is God's order and I seek refuge in God from being ignorant.
The Israelites who were seeking excuses asked: What kind of cow should it be? Moses went to Mount Toor and asked God every time, and the Israelites got these answers: The cow should be golden yellow so that its color would bring joy and happiness. The cow should be neither young nor old, and it should have no spots of white or black on its body. The cow should have never drawn water from a well or plowed the land.
After getting all these specifications, they found a cow that matched them, but the owner asked for a high price that almost made them give up on buying and slaughtering it. Finally, they did it and touched some of its meat to the dead body. The dead man came alive and pointed out his killer, who was one of the Israelites.
Mystics have interpreted the cow of the Israelites as the person's Nafs, and killing it means giving up worldly desires and passions. They said that when the Israelites said, "Are you mocking us?", they meant that Moses wanted to humiliate them and make them obey him, because mockery is worse than any other insult.
They also mentioned that Pharaoh humiliated his people to make them follow him and that this is still a tactic used in global politics today. They explained that the color yellow was chosen because it is attractive and pleasing, but it lacks the greenness and richness of life. If this Nafs is killed, the divine soul that seems dead due to negligence will revive and reveal its secrets. The first thing it will say is that it was killed by the same Nafs.
This article is adopted from a book written in Persian by Iranian author Hossein Mohyeddin Ghomshei.
