ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated from al-Zuhrī, from Sinān al-Dīlī (1), from Abū Wāqid al-Laythī, who said:

“We set out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ before (the battle of) Ḥunayn. When we passed by a lote-tree (2) we said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, appoint for us a Dhat Anwāṭ just as the disbelievers have a Dhat Anwāṭ.’ The idolaters used to hang their weapons on a lote-tree and stay in devotion around it.

The Prophet ﷺ replied,

‘Allāhu akbar! This is exactly what the Children of Israel said to Moses—“Make for us a god just as they have gods” (al-Aʿrāf 7:138). Indeed you are following the pathways of those who went before you.’”

Al-Nasāʾī also transmitted it (3) from Muḥammad ibn Rāfiʿ, from ʿAbd al-Razzāq (4) with the same chain; and al-Tirmidhī (5) from Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Makhzūmī, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from al-Zuhrī with the same wording—and he said, “It is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.”

Ibn Jarīr (6) likewise reported—through Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, Maʿmar, and ʿUqayl—from al-Zuhrī, from Sinān ibn Abī Sinān, from Abū Wāqid al-Laythī that they left Mecca with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for Ḥunayn (7). He said: “The idolaters had a lote-tree around which they would gather and on which they hung their weapons; it was called Dhat Anwāṭ. We passed by a great, green lote-tree, and we said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, appoint for us a Dhat Anwāṭ just as they have a Dhat Anwāṭ.’

He replied, ‘By the One in Whose hand is my soul! You have said exactly what the people of Moses said to him: “Make for us a god just as they have gods.” He answered, “You are indeed an ignorant people. Surely what these people are engaged in will be destroyed, and all they are doing is false.”’ (al-Aʿrāf 7:138–139)

The point is that when Moses—peace be upon him—left the land of Egypt and reached the vicinity of Jerusalem, he found there a people of formidable tyrants: Hittites, Philistines, Canaanites, and others. Moses, peace be upon him, ordered his people to enter against them, to fight them, and to expel them from the Holy House, for Allah had written it for them and promised it to them through Abraham the Friend and Moses the Noble Interlocutor. They refused and shrank back from jihad, so Allah cast fear upon them and left them wandering—journeying, encamping, moving on and returning—for a long span of years, namely forty, as Allah the Exalted says:

“Remember when Moses said to his people, ‘My people, remember Allah’s favor upon you: He appointed prophets among you, made you kings, and gave you what He had not given to anyone else in the worlds. My people, enter the Holy Land that Allah has prescribed for you and do not turn back on your heels, lest you become losers.’ They said, ‘Moses, in it are a people of great strength, and we shall never enter it until they leave; if they leave, then we will enter.’” (al-Māʾidah 5:20–22)