Al-A'raf 150: When Moses returned to his people angrily and saddened, he said; “What bad deeds have you committed behind me after (I left)? Did you rush (and not wait) for your Lord’s order?” He left the tablets (of Torah) and started grabbing his brother’s head. (His brother said); “Oh son of my mother, these people surely saw me as weak and they almost killed me. Do not make my enemies laugh at me and do not set me equal with this oppressing group.”

Surah Al-A'raf, verse 150: When Moses, angry and grieved, returned to his people: 'What evil you have done behind me after I left! Your Lord's command — did you wait and hasten, did you not wait and hasten?' he said. The Torah tablets he threw to the ground, it says — but he did not throw them, he laid them down. Throwing is one thing, laying down is another. And he took hold of his brother Aaron's head and began pulling him toward himself. His brother said: 'Son of my mother, these people truly considered me weak and nearly killed me. So do not let the enemies laugh at me, and do not count me with these wrongdoing people,' he said.

Yes.

When Moses came from Tur and saw this state of his people, both angry and grieved — angry; he was fiery, it is said, Moses was very fiery. Grieved: toward Allah Almighty — against this people who disregarded so many blessings of our Lord, seeing truly nothing he could do, he grieves. In the face of so many of His blessings. What are those blessings? Pharaoh was letting their daughters live and killing their sons. In Egypt he made them do the hardest work. They worked like slaves for Pharaoh for a wage they could not live on. And finally, after so many miracles, even though a prophet came from among them, His bringing them to salvation, Allah Almighty drowning Pharaoh, their enemy, in the Red Sea — Pharaoh, the enemy of the Children of Israel — and making them heirs of those lands: in the face of this, amid so many blessings, when they still worship a calf, of course there is nothing to be done. Nothing is left anymore.

Of course he grieves.

And when Moses came from Tur and saw this state of his people, both angry and grieved, he turned to his people in fury. 'What evil deeds you have done behind me. You worshipped idols without waiting for your Lord's command,' saying this, he laid the Torah tablets on the ground. We say 'laid them on the ground'. He did not throw them to the ground. Throwing is different. Now, the tablets of the Torah are in the Holy Quran. Now, throwing this — (?) the Quran — now these are Allah's verses. Throwing is one thing, laying on the ground another. You lay it down with reverence. Yes.

In this situation, Moses warns his people in this way. 'What evil deeds you have done behind me.' They say: 'This Samiri — when we were leaving Egypt, we took some jewellery, like gold. He told us, your way is different, you do not worship Allah. Your god is a calf, he said.' He collected the gold from them and made a calf. He was very skilled. When the wind blew, the calf made a sound, it lowed. At once the Children of Israel begin to worship it, the calf. 'Samiri deceived us,' they say. 'When the calf made a sound, we thought it was god,' they say. And when Moses asks Samiri, 'Why did you do this?', he says: 'Someone came to me and showed me the way; he took a handful of earth, and that earth he shaped somehow, and like this he showed me a way, and I made this, and we worshipped it as god,' he says.

And there he expels him from his people. Samiri was in fact a Copt, it is said. Now, it is narrated that these tablets — by Allah's knowledge and power, rays in the form of lightning cut the rocks and made them into tablets. The power of our Lord, of course. Today, with a thin jet of water, forcefully, under pressure, spurting, they cut huge pieces of iron. Iron, with (?), by spurting — rays. Why not? Should Allah Almighty, with His power and knowledge, not make those rocks neatly into tablets and work them? Yes. Writing on these tablets with rays in the same way formed the Torah's pages. Yes.

When Moses came down from Tur, he was angry. Angry. As I said, he immediately seizes his brother's head and begins shaking him by the beard. 'Why did you not stop them?' he says.

And Aaron, as the verse says: 'They considered me weak. They nearly killed me. They nearly killed me. Do not disgrace me before my enemies,' he says. As for his saying 'son of my mother': they had the same mother but different fathers, it is said. Moses and Aaron. Yes. When, in that fury, he took hold of his brother Aaron's head and began pulling him toward himself, Aaron: O son of Adam, son of my mother, do not count me with your wrongdoing people. They considered me weak. They did not listen to what I said. Whatever I did, I could not dissuade them from making this idol, he says. I could not dissuade them from making this idol.

I barely saved my life from their hands. They almost killed me too. Now do not put me in a (?) position before the enemies among this wrongdoing people, and do not count me with these wrongdoing people, he said. Yes. How beautifully he puts it. By the deeds each person has done, people make themselves witnesses — to themselves, to those around, and to Allah Almighty — and by the deeds they have done they earn reward and sin. Yes. No one is compared with anyone else. By the deeds they have done, in terms of reward and sin, in return for their sins, people's goodness or badness is with Allah. Yes.

Many commentators, explaining Aaron's saying 'son of my mother', speak of its recalling a mother's compassion; some, of her being a believing woman. A believing woman. And a believing woman is a (?) who has risen to the nafs-i mutmainna, they say. She is one who, for Allah, is abundant in forgiveness and mercy. The real meaning here: although the mother is the same and the father is the same, although the mother is the same and the father is the same, since in Islam there is no lie at all, where a woman got the child from is not known. Even if from the same father, so as to leave no room for any lie, one is called 'son of the mother' or called by one's mother's name.

For this reason Aaron said 'son of my mother'. Yes. Some, as I said just now, say same mother, different father. Here, even if the mother and father were the same, his saying 'son of my mother' leads to meanings. The truest meaning here: with his saying 'son of my mother', the mother being the same and the father different is the stronger possibility. But in the meaning here too — that is, even if father and mother were the same — his saying 'son of my mother': as I said just now, so that it can be spoken in the truest sense, one is called by one's mother's name. For example, when a deceased is buried — when a person dies and the deceased is buried, they say 'son of such-and-such lady' or 'son of such-and-such woman'.

Whereas in our language a child, while alive, is referred to by the father. Called by the father's name, by his surname. But when he dies and is laid in the grave, most properly there he is called by his mother's name. Yes. In this case it is understood this way. For us, the narrations or history are not important. The aim is what the persons say. Yes. Allah and His Messenger know best here. Yes.