Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And he cast down the tablets and seized his brother by the head, dragging him toward him.”

The Shaykh : Please proceed, and I hope that no speech accompanies the raising of the hand, in order to maintain order.

The questioner : The question is about the saying of Allah the Exalted regarding our master Musa (peace be upon him) Here we want to know the meaning of “casting down,” since Allah the Mighty and Majestic in the other verse says These tablets are from Allah the Mighty and Majestic, and then here it comes in the sense of casting down by our master Musa (peace be upon him). We want to know the meaning of this verse, even if briefly?

The Shaykh : The meaning of what exactly? The casting down.

The questioner : The casting down that is from Allah the Mighty and Majestic, and how can this be from Him...?

The Shaykh : The casting down is an action that occurred from Musa (peace and blessings be upon him). Pay attention, what occurred from Musa (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding the casting down of the tablets containing the Torah was an action that issued from him unconsciously, as he cast them to the ground. Likewise, his seizing his brother by the head, and in the other verse by his beard, he said All of this and that was from Musa (peace and blessings be upon him) due to the impulse of humanity and the anger that is inherent in man when he is surprised by an action that disturbs him. There is no doubt and no ambiguity that Musa (peace and blessings be upon him) was surprised by a matter that the mountains could not bear, which is that his people, the Jews, when Musa (peace and blessings be upon him) went to the Mount to converse with his Lord, left them worshipping Allah alone, having no partner with Him. And then he was surprised to find that they had returned to worshipping the calf and associating partners with Allah the Mighty and Majestic. So his anger flared up at that moment, and he cast the tablets from his hand. From here, it was part of the wisdom of the Wise Lawgiver in the religion of Islam, which is the culmination of the religions, that a Muslim is not held accountable in the Hereafter for what may issue from him in a state of anger. He is not held accountable in the Hereafter, and first of all, he may not be held accountable in this world immediately. He may not be held accountable either, because anger is a matter that surprises a person or catches him off guard. And this is Musa (peace and blessings be upon him), the one who spoke with Allah the Mighty and Majestic, who cast the tablets, meaning the Torah, casting them to the ground. If a Muslim did this with the Mushaf, the Noble Qur'an, throwing it to the ground intentionally and deliberately, he would commit disbelief. But in an outburst of anger like that Mosaic outburst, he is not held accountable for it. Therefore, for the sake of benefit, I state a legal ruling that people today are in extreme need of, due to the frequency with which they are asked about this issue. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said Meaning, the divorce of the one who divorces his wife does not take place if he divorces her in a state of *ighlaq*. What is *ighlaq*? The scholars explained it with two interpretations, and there is no third. The first is that *ighlaq* is coercion, in both word and meaning. *Ighlaq* is coercion, in language and meaning. This is the first meaning. And the other meaning is anger. *Ighlaq* is the anger that blocks its owner from the path of sound thinking. For this reason, many of our scholars of the Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them) held that the divorce of the angry person does not take place. And among that is the treatise composed by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, the student of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on them both, Blessed and Exalted is He), which he titled “Ighathat al-Lahfan fi Talaq al-Ghadib” (The Relief of the Anxious Regarding the Divorce of the Angry One). There, he clarifies that the divorce of the angry person does not take place, and he has another proof. But this other proof is a citation, deduction, and independent legal reasoning from an authentic hadith, whereas our previous hadith is an explicit text on the subject As for the other hadith that strengthens the indication of the first hadith, it is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) A legal ruling follows from this hadith that the judge who judges between people by what Allah has revealed is not permitted to judge in a case between two people while he is in a state of anger. It is not permissible for him to do so. And if it happens that he does so, his judgment is not valid, because the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) says So if he judged between two people, one having a dirham against the other, this judgment would not be valid, let alone if he judged with dinars, tens, or hundreds. This is the answer to the previous question. Its summary is that Musa (peace and blessings be upon him) cast the tablets of the Torah to the ground due to an outburst of anger that he suffered when he was told that his people had returned to worshipping the calf.