Al-Tabut
Definition
Al-tabut — the chest or container — refers to the basket in which Musa's mother placed her infant at divine inspiration and cast into the Nile when she could no longer conceal him from Pharaoh's soldiers. The extraordinary nature of this command — 'Cast him into the river and do not fear and do not grieve; indeed, We will return him to you' — is that it required a mother to put her child into danger on the basis of a promise. Ibn Kathir uses the tabut as one of the clearest examples of tawakkul in the Quran: an act that appears to be abandonment but is actually the most profound possible trust in the One who sustains all things, including infants in rivers and mothers in anguish.
As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Kathir and the scholars of his school.
Appears in
1 book in the library
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