Al-Tih
Definition
Al-tih — the wilderness or wandering — refers to the forty years during which the Israelites were forbidden from entering the Holy Land as a consequence of their collective refusal to fight for it when commanded. Despite having been miraculously freed from slavery and sustained with manna and quail in the desert, the Israelites refused to enter a land inhabited by powerful peoples — saying 'Go, you and your Lord, and fight; we will remain here.' Ibn Kathir presents the forty years of tih as both punishment and purification: the fearful generation that refused died in the desert, and the next generation — raised in the wilderness, tested by hardship — was the generation that proved capable of inheriting the promise.
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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