[234] The bush from whence Moses heard the voice of God is mentioned in the Commentary upon the Koran in the following manner. Moses, travelling with his family from Midian to Egypt, came to the valley of Towa, situated near mount Sinai; his wife fell in labor and was delivered of a son, in a very dark and snowy night; he had also lost his way, and his cattle was scattered from him, when on a sudden he saw a fire by the side of a mountain, which on his nearer approach he found burning in a _green bush_. The Koran (chap. XX. vv. 9-14) says: “When he saw fire and said to his family: Tarry ye here, for I perceive fire: peradventure I may bring you a brand thereout, or may find a direction in our way by the fire. And when he was come near unto it, a voice called unto him, saying: O Moses! verily I am thy Lord: wherefore put off thy shoes: for thou art in the sacred valley Towa. And I have chosen thee: therefore hearken with attention unto that which is revealed unto thee. Verily I am God; there is no God beside me: wherefore worship me, and perform thy prayer in remembrance of me.” [235] The name of Pharâoh occurs several times in this work; but the character of this personage is viewed in a different light by the sectarians of Muhammedism. In the Koran he appears nearly as in the Bible of the Jews, with regard to Moses and the Israelites, cruel, tyrannical, presumptuous, and perishing in the Red Sea: not without having before acknowledged their God, and confessed his sins. But some Súfis see and admire in the impious daring of Pharâoh the omnipotence of his power, and adduce, in favor of their opinion, passages from some of their most celebrated philosophers. Indeed Jelaleddin represents Pharâoh equal to Moses. Sahel Ibn Abd-ullah of Shostr says, that the secret of the soul was first revealed when Pharâoh declared himself a God. Ghazáli sees in his temerity nothing else but the most noble aspiration to the divine, innate in the human mind.