To preclude once and for all objections on the part of any of the world's peoples, We shall conduct Our discussion conformably to those authoritative accounts which all nations are agreed upon.
At a time when the Israelites had multiplied in
Egypt and were spread throughout the whole country,
the Coptic Pharaohs of Egypt determined to strengthen
and favor their own Coptic peoples and to degrade and
dishonor the children of Israel, whom they regarded as
foreigners. Over a long period, the Israelites, divided
and scattered, were captive in the hands of the tyrannical
Copts, and were scorned and despised by all, so that
the meanest of the Copts would freely persecute and
lord it over the noblest of the Israelites. The enslavement,
wretchedness and helplessness of the Hebrews
reached such a pitch that they were never, day or night,
secure in their own persons nor able to provide any
defense for their wives and families against the tyranny
of their Pharaohic captors. Then their food was the
fragments of their own broken hearts, and their drink
a river of tears. They continued on in this anguish
until suddenly Moses, the All-Beauteous, beheld the