Why is the Key Event from the story of Moses missing from the Qur’an?

Anyone who reads the Qur’an will notice the emphasis that is placed upon Moses. Out of all the characters identified as prophets by the Qur’an, Moses (or Musa) is by far the most often referred to. In fact, it takes the next three most often mentioned prophets (Ibrahim, Nuh & Yusuf) to be combined, to surpass the 138 mentions of Moses.

The reason for this is that Islam wants to be seen as a restating of the ancient law of God. More correctly, however, it is a revising of that law, for while we find, as in the Torah(Taurat), emphasis on circumcision, dietary laws, prayer and fasting, as the path to divine blessing, missing from the Qur’anic understanding of the law of Moses is the crucial idea that the original law sat upon the foundation of redemption.

“It wasn’t the law that saved them – they were redeemed by the blood of a lamb.”

When we turn to the book of Exodus, the second of the five books of Moses that comprise the Torah, we find it divides into two parts. The first half of the book relates how the people of Israel were saved from Egypt; the second, how they were sanctified (set apart as a holy people) unto God.

It is in this second half of the book that we read about the giving of the law, detailed in chapter 20. It is aspects of this law that the Qur’an wants to focus on, making an attempt at sanctification without the prior need for salvation. O yes, the Qur’an does recount various parts of the preceding story across many chapters of the Qur’an (Surahs 7 & 20 containing two major sections), but it misses out on the most important part, that it wasn’t the law that saved them – they were redeemed by the blood of a lamb. Let’s look again at the book of Exodus in the Torah.

In the first half, the people are delivered from death and bondage in Egypt through being redeemed. That is, there was a price to be paid – a lamb had to be sacrificed in the place of the condemned firstborn son and applied to the doorposts of the house. This is recorded in Exodus ch.12 and I would encourage you to read the whole chapter yourself carefully. After the instruction concerning the required sacrifice, we hear the Lord God declare and promise salvation, as the title above states, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”. Thus the event that took place came to be called Passover. The fact that Passover continues to be observed and celebrated annually by Jewish people across the world, right up to the present, tells us something of its centrality in the Exodus narrative, and its importance to the history of the people of God.

It is not just that Passover is a sentimental historical memory, a nation marking their birthday. Later in the Books of Moses, we learn that Passover is very important to the Lord God Himself.

“If anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the LORD’s offering at its appointed time.”

Number 9:13

How is it then, that for all of the Qur’an’s emphasis of Moses, there is not one instance of a reference to Passover – no mention of divine judgement falling on the firstborn; no mention of the provision of a substitutionary lamb; no mention of the salvation and shelter provided by the shed blood?

The answer is clearly that this God-given way of salvation for the people of Israel in Moses’ day is a wonderful picture of a greater provision – a way of salvation for all mankind, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ at the cross – ‘the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). And of course, this is one of the two pillars of truth that the man/men who authored the Qur’an were seeking to argue against.

They want you to believe that you don’t need a Saviour to live a righteous life, but they can only do that by ignoring the central part of the story, and hoping you don’t go looking into the previous Scriptures. This is the very thing I would encourage you to do. Read the book of Exodus and focus not on the similarities with what Islam teaches, but on the differences, especially on what is missing.

For while it is noble to seek to live holy, sanctified lives, we must learn the lesson of Exodus, and realise that salvation comes before sanctification. We must also admit that, like the firstborn of Exodus 12, we stand condemned facing God’s judgement and we can do nothing to rid ourselves of our sin and guilt. When we admit this, we can then rejoice that God, in grace, has made a way of escape; that there is a sacrifice made in my place by Jesus Christ; that there is a shedding of the most precious blood under which I can find shelter and safety from the coming judgement.

All the ancient Israelite had to do was take God at His word: take a lamb, and apply the blood. Similarly, this is all we have to do. Take God at His Word: take THE Lamb – Jesus Christ – as your Saviour, and apply His shed blood to your life, acknowledging that His blood fully covers the debt you owe to God.

Then rest in Christ’s finished work, and hold on to God’s faithful promise: “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”.