The Samiri belonged to a people who worshipped cattle—neighbours of the Children of Israel, though he himself was not one of them. Yet he departed Egypt in the company of Moses and the Israelites. It was decreed that he came upon a certain trace, so he took a handful of it. As he passed by Aaron, Aaron said to him, “Samiri, will you not cast away what is in your hand?” He was still clutching it, unseen by anyone all that time.
He replied, “This is a handful from the trace of the Messenger who brought you across the sea. I will not throw it down unless you pray to Allah that, when I do, it become what I intend.” He cast it, and Aaron supplicated for him. The Samiri then said, “I want it to become a calf.” At once everything that lay in the pit—goods, ornaments, copper, iron—gathered together and turned into a hollow calf, lifeless yet producing a lowing sound.
Ibn ʿAbbās said, “By Allah, it never produced a voice of its own; the wind merely entered through its rear and exited through its mouth, and that is where the sound came from.”
The Children of Israel split into factions. One group said, “Samiri, what is this?—you know it better than we do.” He answered, “This is your Lord, but Moses has lost the way.”
Another group said, “We will not deny this until Moses returns. If it is indeed our Lord, we will not have neglected Him or been helpless concerning Him once we behold Him; and if it is not, we will follow Moses’ word.”
A third group declared, “This is the work of Satan; it is not our Lord. We will neither believe in it nor affirm it.” Yet another faction concealed in their hearts belief in what the Samiri said about the calf while outwardly rejecting it.
Aaron, peace be upon him, said to them, “My people, you have only been tested by it; your Lord is the All-Merciful” (Ṭā Hā 20:90). “This (calf) is not He.”
They retorted, “Why has Moses promised us thirty days and failed us? Forty days have now passed.” Their fools added, “His Lord missed the appointment, so Moses is out searching for Him.”
When Allah spoke to Moses and told him what He told him, He also informed him of what his people had done. Moses returned to them angry and sorrowful, as you have heard in the Qur’an: “He seized his brother by the head, pulling him toward him” (al-Aʿrāf 7:150); he also cast down the tablets in his anger. Afterwards he accepted his brother’s excuse and sought forgiveness for him, then turned to the Samiri and said, “What drove you to do what you did?”
The Samiri replied, “I grasped a handful from the trace of the Messenger; I perceived it while you did not, and I threw it in—thus did my soul prompt me” (Ṭā Hā 20:96). Moses said, “Then begone! Throughout your life you shall say, ‘Touch me not’; and you have an appointment you can never fail. Now look at your god to which you remained devoted: we shall burn it, then scatter its ashes in the sea—utterly scattering it” (Ṭā Hā 20:96–97). Had it truly been a god, it would have been able to defend itself.
The Children of Israel then realised the trial they had endured, and those whose view had coincided with Aaron’s rejoiced. They said to the rest, “Moses, ask that a gate of repentance be opened for us—something we can do to expiate what we have committed.” So Moses chose seventy men from among his people for that purpose—the best of the Children of Israel, those who had not mixed truth with idolatry. He set out with them to seek repentance, and the earth shook beneath them. The Prophet of Allah, peace be upon him, felt ashamed before his people and his deputation when that befell them, and he said, “Lord, had You willed, You could have destroyed them earlier—and me as well. Will You now destroy us for what the fools among us have done?” (al-Aʿrāf 7:155).
Among them were some whose hearts Allah knew had drunk in love for the calf and faith in it; because of that the earth quaked beneath them. Allah said, “My mercy encompasses all things; I shall ordain it for those who are God-fearing, give the zakāh, and believe in Our signs—” (al-Aʿrāf 7:156).