Yunus (Jonas)

78. “They said: ‘(O’ Moses) have you come to turn us away from what we found our fathers upon, and that the greatness in the land may be for you two? But we shall not believe you two.”

The people of Pharaoh continued their accusations against Moses, explicitly accusing him and Aaron of wanting them to abandon the ways of their ancestors.

They brought up the issues of ancestral traditions, and their fabulous glory to influence public opinion against Moses and Aaron, implying that they wanted to belittle and ridicule the sacred objects and symbols of their society and country.

They maintained then that Moses’ call to Allah’s religion and divinely inspired way was nothing but a lie. They claimed all of them were simply part of a stratagem of Moses and Aaron to seize power over the land and to put the reins of domination in their hands.

In fact, as they themselves made every effort to rule the earth oppressively, using all kinds of underhanded ways of seizing power, they ended up thinking of others as they thought of themselves, which included the struggles of the reformists and prophets.

The verse says:

“They said: ‘(O’ Moses) have you come to turn us away from what we found our fathers upon, and that the greatness in the land may be for you two?...”

For this reason they said that they were never going to believe in Moses for they thought his message and proofs were only but the act of sorcery in the service of a wider scheme for political aggrandizement. This was the first stage of their struggle against Moses (as).

The verse continues saying:

“…But we shall not believe you two.”