Arnold Kling’s piece on “The Moses Complex” is very interesting and insightful, and I think highlights one of the biggest differences between the Biblical story of Moses, Aaron, Pharoh and the People of Israel versus the Qur’anic story of the same event (of Musa, Haroun, Fir’oun and the Bani Isra’il).
The story in Jewish scripture, as commonly interpreted, is about God leading God’s people to freedom in the Promised Land from slavery in Egypt. The confrontation between Moses and Pharoh is only the first part of a much longer story, and is not so central as the wandering in the wilderness and the struggle to keep the faith. It can become a metaphor for anyone seeking to lead themselves — or anyone else — to freedom. It never ocurred to me to consider that some might have a “Moses Complex” in their desire to free others, but it makes a certain kind of sense.
In the Qur’anic version of the story (which appears numerous times), the focus is not on freeing God’s people, but on God’s prophet confronting tyranny in the form of Fir’oun, the self-proclaimed god-king of Egypt. Bani Isra’il’s fleeing across Sinai does follow, but that’s almost a coda, and certainly not what most Muslims I know focus upon. The story has also been a very powerful metaphor for any Muslim struggling against the state, since any unjust ruler become Pharoh (as Qutb painted Nasser, or all the revolutionary jihadists I knew personally considered the Al Sauds). It is as much a source of strength for resistance, and I suspect a Muslim version of the “Moses Complex” Kling wrote about is at work among the jihadis.
I like the Qur’anic story much better. It has a much more libertarian feel to it, and does not so much focus on the Bani Isra’il’s chosenness and specialness as it does the fact that Fir’oun is simply a bad guy by thinking that he is a god himself and believing he is entitled to wield the power of life and death. (I am learning to appreciate the Biblical version of the story, because by focusing on the freeing of God’s people, and the wandering in the wilderness, it forces us to ask “freed from what? free for what?”) Like most of the sermons Prophet Muhammad gave (that became the Qur’an), it is designed to bolster Muhammad’s credibility as a prophet by linking him to “other” prophets and by telling the non-believers of Makka, and the believers of Madinah, around him: “Listen to God’s prophet and obey him, and obey God, because bad things will happen if you don’t.”
9:34 am on March 2, 2006
