Second point: Although part of the Sahara desert, the bounteous gifts of the blessed Nile have made Egypt a fertile, arable land. Such a blessed, paradise-like land being adjacent to the hellish Sahara caused farming and agriculture to be so established in the Egyptians’ very nature that agriculture became sanctified and cows and bulls became objects of worship. In fact, the Egyptians of Prophet Moses’ time actually worshipped cows and bulls, as can be seen by the Jews making a calf to worship years after the Exodus. The Qur’an explains that Moses, by sacrificing a cow and through his Messengership, eradicated this ingrained concept. Thus this apparently insignificant event points to a universal principle with an elevated miraculousness, and expounds upon it as a most essential lesson of wisdom for everyone at all times.

By analogy, certain minor incidents mentioned in the Qur’an as historical events are tips of universal principles. In Lema‘at, in the “Treatise of the Miraculousness of the Qur’an,” I used, as examples, the seven sentences of Moses’ story to explain how each part of those particular sentences contains a significant universal principle.