The Prophet ﷺ said,(1) “You have a greater claim to Moses than they do,(2) so observe the fast.” They therefore fasted. The original wording of this ḥadīth is recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and in other collections as well.(3) And Allah knows best.

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Section: What befell the Children of Israel after Pharaoh perished(4)

Allah the Exalted says:

“So We took vengeance upon them and drowned them in the sea, for they had rejected Our signs and were heedless of them. (136) And We made the people who had been oppressed heirs to the eastern and western parts of the land that We had blessed. Thus the most beautiful word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of their patience, and We destroyed utterly what Pharaoh and his people had built and what they had raised up. (137) And We led the Children of Israel across the sea; then they came upon a people devoted to their idols. They said, ‘Moses, make for us a god just as they have gods.’ He replied, ‘You are indeed an ignorant people. (138) What these people are engaged in will be destroyed, and what they are doing is false. (139) Am I to seek for you a god other than Allah while He has favored you above all peoples?’ (140) And remember when We delivered you from Pharaoh’s folk, who were subjecting you to the worst torment, slaughtering your sons and sparing your women; in that was a tremendous trial from your Lord.” (al-Aʿrāf 7:136–141)

Here Allah—magnified be He—relates how Pharaoh and his troops were drowned, how He stripped them of their power, their wealth, and even their very lives, and how He handed over to the Children of Israel all their riches and holdings. He says, “Thus We bequeathed them to the Children of Israel” (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:59); and He says, “We wished to show favor to those who were oppressed in the land, to make them leaders and to make them the inheritors” (al-Qaṣaṣ 28:5); and He says here, “And We made the people who had been oppressed heirs to the eastern and western parts of the land that We had blessed …” (al-Aʿrāf 7:137).

That is, He destroyed all of it and stripped them of the vast might in which they had gloried. The king, his entourage, his nobles, and his soldiers all perished, and none remained in Egypt but the commoners and rural folk. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam relates in his History of Egypt(5) that from that time forward the women of Egypt gained dominance over their men, for the wives of the former dignitaries and grandees married men who were beneath them in rank.