Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And when Moses said to his people, ‘O my people, you have wronged yourselves by taking the calf [as a god]. So repent to your Creator and kill yourselves.’”

Then he mentioned another favor, saying: meaning, “And remember when Moses said to his people.” The word *al-qawm* means a group of people or a tribe; it means a tribe. The jurists say that *al-qawm* refers to those from the fourth grandfather downward; these are the *qawm* in the Arabic language. He addressed them with affection using the description of their kinship, out of affection and kindness, and to show that he was advising them, for a person advises his own people. He emphasized the sentence to clarify the reality of their state. And means you deprived yourselves of your right, for *zulm* (wrongdoing) originally means deprivation. Allah the Exalted said: meaning, it diminishes, it diminishes; this is the original meaning. However, it may be intended to mean more than deprivation; it may be intended to mean more than deprivation. Here, you deprived them of their right, and that was due to the violation of tawhid (the oneness of Allah). So he said: The *ba* here indicates causality, meaning because of your taking the calf. *Ittihad* is a verbal noun, and its verb is *ittakhadha*. It is attached to its doer, the *kaf* (you), which is the doer, and is the first object, while the second object is omitted. Its implied meaning is: a god. You wronged yourselves because of your taking the calf as a god to be worshipped other than Allah. As for the calf, it was previously mentioned that it was a golden calf in the form of a calf, and that the one who led the people astray with it was a man called al-Samiri. Yes? They took it as a god, may Allah protect us from that. So Moses (peace and blessings be upon him) guided them to salvation from this great wrongdoing. He said: The command means “return,” for *tawbah* (repentance) and *awbah* (return) mean returning to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). Repentance is achieved by turning to Allah, by turning to Allah by doing His commands and avoiding His prohibitions. If the wrongdoing was by leaving an obligatory duty, repentance is by performing it. And if the wrongdoing was by committing a sin, repentance is by leaving it and abandoning it.
He did not say “to Allah,” nor did he say “to your Lord,” in order to show their blame and rebuke, for *al-Bari* means the Creator who cares, the Creator who cares. So it is as if He is saying: How do you take the calf as a god and neglect your Creator who cares for you? This is like the saying of Ilyas (peace be upon him) to his people: , meaning, your Creator, what is there after that? The one who cares for you. The *fa* here is explanatory, for his saying: is an explanation of the general statement in his saying: And on this basis, the *fa* is for explanation, meaning so repent with this description. meaning, so that some of you kill others, and the meaning is not that every person kills himself by consensus. No one among the exegetes said that the meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: is that every person kills himself. Rather, the meaning is: some of you kill others; a person kills his son, his father, his brother. The important thing is that you prepare and take up weapons, daggers, knives, and swords, and each of you attacks the other and kills him. Yes, did you understand?