The Story of Moses and Pharaoh in a Structural Anthropology Approach

Ahmad Umam Aufi

doi:10.24014/jush.v29i1.10479

Abstract

This study examined the story of Moses and Pharaoh as one of the Islamic narrative discourses in the Qur’an. Structural anthropology Claude Lévi-Strauss was used to analyze the story’s structure or nature of the mind. The results of the study explicate that the story of Moses and Pharaoh had a structure of “struggle plot to convey the truth”. Based on the episodes of the story showed a continuous transformation of structure and forms cylindrical triangle. Behind the story of Moses and Pharaoh was reflection of the developing culture in Islamic societies. First, there were some societies’ components in the struggle process of the faithful in conveying the truth, both theologically or socio-politically. Such as the actor of social change (Moses), masses of people (the people of Moses), authorities who refused the change (Pharaoh and his leaders) and opportunist intellectuals (the magicians before being defeated by Moses), and organic intellectuals (the magicians after believing in the truth of Moses). Second, the community’s culture was controlled by established authorities, the commitment of the truth will gain a refusal and despite resistance. The prerequisite to be able to undergo it was to confirm it rationally and empirically (according to the times).

Highlights

The stories in the Qur’an contain the stories of the previous people, previous prophets, and narratives of countries or regions in the past
Stories that are related to the events which are occurred at the time of the Prophet Muhammad for example the battle of Badr and Uhud in Ali Imran’s letter and hijrah
There are society’s components in the process of the believers’ struggle in conveying the truth, both theologically and socio-politically. Such as actors of social change (Moses), masses (Moses’ people), authorities who resist change (Pharaoh and his leaders) as well as opportunist intellectuals, and organic intellectuals

Summary

Introduction

The stories in the Qur’an (qaṣah al-Qur’an) contain the stories of the previous people, previous prophets, and narratives of countries or regions in the past. Ahimsa mentions the term ceriteme-ceriteme, which are units of a series of sentences that contain certain meanings when connected to other ceriteme and form episodes that are interconnected with other episodes.34 In this story, it can be viewed the relationships that create the story of Moses and Pharaoh as described in the previous discussion. At the first of the story, Moses conveys the proof of truth by exposing a stick and a shining light in his hand and he receives rejection and resistance from Pharaoh and his leaders by gathering magicians. This structure is transformed in the form of Pharaoh’s rejection of the proof of Moses’ truth after winning the battle against the magicians and making them submit and accept the truth that Moses brought. Ahmad Umam Aufi: The Story of Moses and Pharaoh in a Staruncdturpaul AnnisthhreodpotlohgeymApbpyroach

Moses won the battle

Conclusion