Is the claim Moses was Akhenaten absurd? - A discussion | Mufti Abu Layth

i'm joining you from yorkshire uh i had a quick question well it wasn't quick it might take a bit of time but i've read the uh i've read the book by ahmed osman um moses and i cannot and it's a very it's a very very silly theory in my opinion it's very con i'm not trying to be offensive or anything it's very it's contradictory it doesn't fit with the chronology of the bible it disrespects moses by extension

and you you can't really fit that theory in anywhere because the theory says that you know moses was like an artisan no scholar in you know no new testament scholar old testament scholar rabbi takes this theory seriously uh we know from history that um i cannot attend marriages why would rabbis and they be an authority anyway let's say if it is if if it holds some truth why would that make a difference well because um historically and uh even the concept of quran moses was a hebrew

right so so first of all the biblical that point is was that just a redundant point or do they why do they hold value is that a redundant point no because they have a like a scholarly tradition and none of them have ever mentioned anything about moses being a canaanite but what's that got to do with the truth if let's say if it is but how is that uh is that a is that a cogent argument that just because biblical scholars so let's say biblical scholars say jesus is the son of god so does that make him the son of god no i'm not talking about like people i believe necessarily but like no one holds it unless the i mean unless if the argument

has false positives then it's a useless redundant argument so is that so is that a redundant argument okay so if we ignore the religious scholars for a second because so you're starting off with a weak argument no no no i'm saying i'm trying to i'm trying to say how no no stronger yes i'm saying look that there's no uh evidence for moses anywhere historically there isn't any evidence for him anywhere archaeologically there's nothing there's nothing to even show that hebrews were in egypt and that's like okay now there's some to do with some uh interaction

but the but it provides if if you understand them to be an offspring of the kind of hicks because they were also middle eastern with uh with semitic roots so if you understand that then there is okay you know that there is findings to prove the exos did live there so i don't think the um the israelites were actually descendants from his takes us with the different semitic people that settle into egypt but did didn't you just begin that sentence with that action what was that again sorry you began that with look i don't think

that no no no but the israelites what does israelites mean well um israelites term no but the thing is what we can't really deal with people who were semitic because they were the exos and they did hide in egypt so now you could say i don't think these are the same but it may be but maybe not it's true i'm not saying they were but i'm saying i don't know how you have so much certainty

to say they went but what we can't do is well we can't we can't solve mismatch a bit of biblical archaeology with some sort of historical you can't say oh yeah but okay so okay another thing is uh we know from history from the records have been found that um akhenaten the pharaoh he marries his own daughter okay do you know that yeah no there's evidence for this there's there's no disagreement on this that he did marry his own daughter okay what's the daughter uh if you search i can't remember it's an egyptian there but you can't search you

i don't know look i just asked you do you know that as a fact you said annoyed as a fact now you think that uh i don't know who it was let's see i don't know the name because it's an egyptian name and i can't quite recall it was it what what was that you know it was it was it is alleged brother was it his successor was it i mean do you know what the fact i'm just curious do you know there's a theory well history can never be factual history according to any historian is

what probably happened so some parts can be factual but look what you see what's the precise question did i marry his you're mixing up his sister no no no his daughter his daughter okay i would have thought you'd have gone because that was the no no

well a lot of people have said there's incest in ancient egypt but what we can prove from you know the records that we have is that only three uh pharaohs in the past have married their own daughter and akken artem is one of them all right okay stop right now you say no you can look this up i'm not making you up you can search it and you'll find i'm correct on this okay sure so let's see

okay let's see now up but okay let's say let's say if in this theory they claimed akenatan married let's say there was some incest that was going on if you claim that but this is not this would not these things wouldn't be factual okay there would be theories the

general theory that uh you must be familiar with if you studied uh egyptology is that the lineage was through the women right so to become the grand pharaoh you had to marry the female from that descent yeah unfair so usually this is where some of them had the the kind of marriages with intellectual marriages with their sisters who were usually half sisters and things like that so this was the what i assumed when you were speaking about incest initially you

would have spoken about that speaking about them in egyptology but as to let's say whether he now his daughter would not have been in that position anyway to give him the royal whereas his sister may have been the half sister so anything that's kind of secondary it would just be speculative it wouldn't be you know lying one is open understanding that this is for example a president to become a president you've got to do this but things that happen at secondary levels where are you saying this is documented you're saying this is categorically documented in hieroglyphics is that what

you're saying yeah they found uh inscriptions saying that she married um akhenaten and then she married the next pharaoh after that okay so let's say this was the case let's just say for my part isn't necessarily the fact that it's wrong that because he marries his daughter there are lots of other points i can go through as well because so far you've mentioned one about rabbis because you said a redundant point

marry the half sisters to gain access to the throne that was a common thing if this did happen like the bible claims abraham married his sister sarah was his half sister so if you're claiming there was okay i'm just saying not that i'm necessarily saying it's true isn't this also the theory isn't this also the theory with abraham and his office no but i don't necessarily believe anything everything in the bible anywhere

also in in some of the islamic tradition all of that will accept that he married his half-sister they will save the half-sister and at that time in this show it wasn't yeah well i'll need to look into that but i don't really i'm not i'm quite skeptical of that anywhere moses did this then moses can't be that person no no not not necessarily i'm saying there are a lot more points this is

one of them arguments like this isn't a point this is just saying incest is wrong and if pharaohs were involved in therefore moses could never have been a pharaoh but people in the past in all kinds of things you know they were incestuous you know if you go back three four thousand years many people were incestuous now i'm not saying that's right but people did that is that the the argument you're building the whole case on that why didn't i no no i'm not building the whole whole case on it actual foundation okay well the strong argument is that you can't really fit this idea of moses being like an art in in the chronology

of you know moses's life anywhere because the mason knows what's happening oh no no that's not okay that's a mistake can you do it when exactly was he the pharaoh then what point of his life was he the pharaoh you'd go with if you're if you're going with acting so you're saying no but then that doesn't make sense why hit someone and run away and then why he'd argue with the failure so make the argument for god's sake i want the actual argument what's the argument like you've not made an argument you just said

so okay so when what's he then let's say no no i'm saying is look if you believe that he is our canarton you'd have to ignore all the evidence give me the cogent argument to kill this debate no you can't it's not really like one argument it's the fact that you look at the narrative presented in the quran and the bible and then you look does it make sense for him to have been akinaton and the evidence doesn't match up what so i'm asking what is the killer give me the the death switch what what kills it like i want something strong you've not given so far you've said rabbis and you accepted that was wrong

you've said incest which i said incest is wrong but is that what you're building this on so you said no i'm not building it on that so it's useless mentioning it then you've said the fact that if he was arkanatan when would he be and i said well he would be in the time of akhenaten oh the uh okay uh there's so many different arguments pulled together okay fine okay fine okay so we know from the quran that moses he grew up in the royal household he saw someone uh beating a slave or hebrew and he punched him he ran away to median okay so okay now you see you're giving a story yeah no no but no but let me just uh

quickly finish off you see now the story is going to now now where would you feel i cannot in any of that because after he had the argument with pharaoh and the first israelites were freed then they went into the desert so when was it and we know that because of what where does the quran see you're giving me a story mention it as a story you're mentioning it mentions bits so you got to tell me the bit that is the problem so we can then discuss that now you're just telling me a story we already believe no no the thing is a bit that you disagree with

right okay i've said i i'm not saying with certainty moses was akhenaten however i've said reading these theories it seems very plausible that he was akanatan i've until now i'm still kind of researching it but it doesn't seem to conflict in any detrimental way to the theory so far so let's take an example like you mentioned the verse that he enters uh sorry that he's a man arguing

this man yeah um and then somebody warns him and then he runs away yeah would the pharaoh run away would the pharaoh just be wondering about yeah so what we do know is that akhenaten does is does leave i'm honor and disappear yeah yeah yeah i know that so so let me tell you the history to some of that that the findings show they show that uh so the amarna letters show that akhenaten started getting condemned

by several people about the killing of two priests especially one particular priest now who was killed under his brain where he was and akhenaten had not done justice for it at all it kind of left the killing now according to this theory let's say this priest was not in favor of arton the one god and was favor of in favor of other gods got into a dispute hence the quran does not say it's an israeli he says means from his group now he

moses takes the side let's say he's a canarton off the one true god and he and this person he hits him has him killed now he doesn't do any of this he doesn't he doesn't have him killed he punches him yeah let's say he he has him it doesn't say brother now look let's say he has him executed he or he kills him now there's supposed to be retaliation you know supposed to be some kind of thing he doesn't it says

so somebody comes from a far off point from some city who tells him he does not say the quran does not say the that the council are conspiring against you then he runs because he sees that he's losing certain support and it's after he please that he receives revelation he's not uh all he receives he's burning bush and stuff like this so he may have had some revelation before but at that point he has the burning bush experience and all of that and he

goes to whatever does all of these things and then he comes back now i'm just saying how does that it's a different take on the story but how has it lashed so massively because it's not really a theory that has any evidence what you're doing is taking a bit of evidence from here a bit of evidence from there no let me tell you something the quran does not give you a coherent story of moses

exactly you're building on only the bible no you are no no is addressing the people who are familiar with that story yeah but it's not addressing you with that familiarity but the people of the time would have known what was talking about they wouldn't have thought i could not already wrong but from other religions but you have this story of moses which is

mainly given to you from biblical sources now some glimpses of the quran you've already superimposed them naturally because it fits into that biblical narrative that you've been brought up with so if you as a kid were brought up with i cannot and being moses you would have fitted it in with that story but it's because you've learned you were brought up with the israelite story the quranic muslim fits into that but if like if the israelites had believed that he was akhenaten and taught you that since you were kid you would have accepted that so the quran what i'm asking is the conflict i'm not asking

you know does it conflict with rabbis or priests i'm asking where does it conflict with the quran clearly i don't mean just a slight i mean a clear contradiction okay moses was a hebrew and he was adopted okay so okay so according to this the descendant of him it was his son yeah and you wouldn't give the pharaoh to an adopted son you'd give it to a descendant or if not is someone related okay so according to this yeah according to this theory he was it's not really the theme of the values

what i'm saying you understand it's a theory yeah so according to this theory he was the son of thai who was the daughter of yusuf who was an israelite so and since the pharaohs considered the lineage to be matrilineal he would have been considered an israelite as well so he was a combination of both so how would he hence according to this story when he's told to speak to the israelites that and he says uh arabia arabian you know like uh make my tongue easy and help you know call my brother who will help me watch the

you know he can strengthen my mata and and make this uh some people interpret this or maybe he had a stamina why is he saying and this was because he didn't grow up with the humans and even though he had some connection with them he didn't speak it fluently according to the economy did you know by the way according to jack theory um the the wazir of akron uh do do you know his full name

he's uh no no i'm not sure he was researching l and he was bring up his uh right i'll have to find it so this is his he had a combined name surname l which was for god which was a hebrew name so egyptians generally didn't have that name now which meant that his wazir of akrenartan at least was from that kind of the hixos kind of descendants

uh who you know was somebody that worshipped ill which quite you know comfortably sits in with just him if you know his moses and the connection with the israelites did you also know abana which is the english spelt a-m-a-r-n-a right now in arabic right or sorry in arabic in your actual its essence in its origin

which could be pronounced in some ways similar to iran or ibrah or now this is so the household from which in the quran descends that's interesting that's a coincidence as well you know names amrana is actually also in the quranic version the household from which he sins i'm just saying okay that's a coincidence you know i'm just i'm not saying that no coincidences obviously he's built his theory on something

where's the kill switch man i wanna like something like i want something powerful to kind of like you know what i said he wasn't adopted i said that he's adopted and you wouldn't give the lineage to an adopted school but where does it say that he had to have been adopted he don't believe he was adopted by the oh sorry so sorry how do you get the lineage right the lineage as i explained to you doesn't come through the boy comes from marrying the daughter so he actually marries that sister who was a half-sister to him who was from the pure heroes that's how you become a pharaoh

in you didn't become it through the boys it was actually matrilineal it was through the women but then the man kind of ruled by making her the main queen no but the mozar was a son of a hebrew woman it was son of a hebrew woman who she cuts into the water and thai was the daughter of yusuf according to this theory who would make her a hebrew yeah but there's no real support for this theory if you know someone saying break it break it to me man because i i want it to be broken but i'm asking you for something so far this is an answer to everything you're saying which is also a reasonable

answer you said well look uh you know you you said that what about a hebrew mother and i said this theory actually posits a hebrew mother who was who was not the main queen okay but the thing is we know who the mother of uh um akhenaten was and it wasn't a hebrew no the mother of akin often was thai who was the daughter of julia who had strange uh appearances and seems to be of non-egyptian origin history yuya is not uh he seems to be somebody who's been made

royalty but wasn't actually from the royals so it actually ties in with the story of yusuf i mean have you even i'm assuming you've looked into this theory so look no i'm saying this this theory is completely rejected by every single historian ever and yeah but now you see what you're saying it's not every single historian there's certainly maybe troy's that um agreed with it and even he no but yes but what didn't he say he didn't say that um moses was like an artist he said he was

a priest yeah but why didn't he say he was like an artist himself he said cousin most likely or somebody very related close to akhenaten but he didn't say he was i cannot and he thought he might have been cemented his half brother or someone else why didn't floyd say in his book moses and monotheism that owes this attack on himself because there's so much historical evidence against him no no no i'm just saying like he would have known what he didn't say no but i'm just saying like everyone like tell me the reason why

moses is missing so yeah yeah i can often but recent technology has shown it's arakanatan in that tomb it's somebody way too young to be in that tomb i believe they found another tomb of uh war would have been a connected world empty oh no not the two exactly so akenatan's body was not in the tomb allocated by in freud's time he didn't know that that was the the body was stolen no in through its time the tomb of uh was allocated to akhenaten and they didn't know that

the body wasn't action artists they didn't have that kind of technology then so according to freud because moses disappears and is probably killed by israelites or whatever the guilt theory the body is missing of course this and akhenaten's bodies found it was a core principle cool cool argument so he felt that okay it couldn't be him maybe it was his half brother or his brother but this point of fruit recently we've realized actually wasn't factual akhenaten is not the tomb of akhenaten so his body is missing yeah

but the reason why it's missing is because it's stolen no because there's a different body in there no no i'm saying is the fact that there is a body and there is a mummy tomb it's just not they they think it might even be a woman that's in there but it's not akinaton because of what his agents like this they've determined the bones and the teeth and stuff like that okay now see now this is a crucial finding that obviously didn't know but my point is what's your your thing coaching okay mo so you believe he was like an art and he would have been the pharaoh

then nope so now look would have been the fair work going back to my point i didn't say this with certainty was a fact i said that look it's i've read these theories and i feel that they are plausible and there's nothing so far that i've read that is categorically in contradiction with islamic teachings no but the thing is i can sort of make many theories which may sound plausible but if you think about them deeply than make no sense so the idea that he was a canarton he didn't free the hebrews and then he okay

so if he as a pharaoh could have freed the hebrews yet he didn't he historically he made he used slave labor i remember something uh the story of that canada doesn't work like that so the story of akhenaten is at thebes he is kind of raised and then as he kind of trains and becomes more he from his forefathers is influenced by atom the one guard now he then by the way hebrew with you know the egyptian you find the correlate substitute between the d

and the t so the way you have but anyway coming back to the main thing that this he was influenced by some of his forefathers they say especially ammon holter and some of them about arton he as he starts getting more power he will start banning all the other gods and so on and then eventually uh what he does is he moves to amana and he sets up his city there he moves from thebes he doesn't kind of stay in thebes

and so he moves to armani sets up his thing there then and he rules in amana for i don't know 12 years or something but from amman reflects and then this theory is that whilst he fled uh because there is no pharaoh then these substitute pharaohs come in back at thebes not at amana because i was called um it was dedicated it was the city of arton uh for the other ones but they didn't they went back to thieves i mean they never went back to they were already in thieves so the kind of people who become the pharaohs they are all in thief and it's when he comes back

here with the royal scepter people recognize him with this where does it say the royal scepter in the quran it says the staff yeah and if it was a royal scepter you wouldn't be using the royal scepter for farming sheep it would sort of be like using a ceremonial sword for battle you wouldn't do it no but the scepter was a smart as well

yeah but when god says to him what's in your right hand he says my stuff i lean on it i use it for um sheep i believe yeah so and i don't believe the other stuff i don't think you mentioned in the quran like he has a staffing no before fleeing to medium does he no yeah but it doesn't say he doesn't like it okay so does it say when he fled to media he took clothes with him no no let me just finish my part let me let me finish my point mention take a sandwich i mean no let me no let me finish my point so it's most likely uh staff made from a lot of scholars have said it's made out of an

almond tree and that was the stuff used at the time for farming where did you get this almond tree from well the growing median no so we this is just like it's the same quran no no but this is more likely though isn't it getting this nonsense from that it came from an army a moment ago he said there is no proof on earth that moses existed but somehow there is categorical proof that his staff was made from an almond tree no well you do believe he went to a median look yes he went to a place we're not saying he's okay and he did become a farmer i don't know about farmer

well he did have sheep does that make sense that his stuff would be used for his sheep why not so it wouldn't have been a royal scepter than would it why not that's what i'm asking in fact with the quran are almost praise your suspicion don't they when you read them on this topic because you see allah asks him [Music] what is that in your right hand now first of all this

seems to be a very redundant question like it doesn't why is god even asking this question like it doesn't like card doesn't say and by the way what are you wearing on your shoes or this on your feet all these handles and by the way what is that you're wearing on your back oh it's the shirt okay yeah well he's asking him because he's gonna show him a miracle no because he could have just said he could allah could have just said throw your stuff yeah he could have just said he doesn't need to say oh by the way what is that oh is that stuff oh wow well done now i think god knew where it was though he's something that surprised him with a miracle no so why ask him what is it no it's just a way of like god's gonna

surprise him so he says what is it he's like no no because he can say to him no that doesn't make any sense that what yes so for example uh let's say every single thing that is about let's say god is about to do something it doesn't mean to say also uh so let's say you believe that let's say god uh is gonna allow jesus to bring a person back from the dead so he's going to ask him first of jesus so what is that it's a man also what is the man oh he's a dead man okay now we're going to bring the dead man back i mean this is this how is this how god works no no i think i think the purpose of the story was that god's gonna transform

our story first okay i think okay what is that in your right hand because look at your god says it's trivia is this it's going to use this trivia okay so god says to him moses what is in your right hand he says it's a staff i use on it uh i lean on it just stop there for a moment then i'm gonna come to this as well yeah yeah it's a staff he says it's a stuff so is this trivia so far what what what why ask him why not just because you're going to say i'm sure well god knows where it is no so so what according to you i ask him he knows where it is god knows where he is

shabash right but he's also told us as an e like he's this is revelation so it's a purpose so either this part is you know it's just trivia it god's just asking him by the way what's that it's a cup okay now drink say bismillah is this so basic that's what you're saying like if i was to say to a child oh i want you to drink so i said okay so what's that that's a cup okay now pick the cup up and drink so this is what you're interpreting allah is saying tomorrow instead of saying look throw the stuff he's saying oh by the way what's that oh that's a stuff uh okay why do you have it uh oh okay throw it it is the god speak that's going on

no well god is asking him what is it and for him it's an ordinary object so he answers oh she's a star so okay let's go to his point now it's a staff yeah yeah why does moses so to speak over explain what it is god did what did god ask him what do you do with it no it isn't so god asks what is it according to you it's just trivia yes that is what is that no i don't say that no because you haven't given a reason so this is trivia then so god says what is that he says he answered what

god doesn't ask why he says what he says why does he want to over i think it's more about the fact that why is god asking me about a stick that i have in my hand soccer she's thinking god doesn't know what a stink does no no he's thinking he's trying to teach god this has happened throughout the quran where you know the prophets over like over questions show me one example of what of this with prophets over explained not necessarily overexplained but ask

questions which this which are um one example in the plan there isn't a simple one no we're not over explaining but answering uh asking a question they're asking a question this raised the suspicion of scholars in trying to explain this historically so they came up with all kinds of explanations and saying why did moses over explain this so some people said oh maybe he's just trying to talk to god maybe he's trying to because this is the only point in the world where this happens that god hasn't asked him he's over explaining it and it's almost as though he's justifying why he has this particular

stick is almost being rebuked but if it is let's say it is this feral thing let's just say that this verse fits better with that theory than it does with the standard thing just being feared just being feared i'm not saying moses has to be akanathan but i'm just saying looking at this point if this was the royal center and god says by the way what's that because since it represents a power which is meant to be in some ways quite bad so why has moses even still got it and

he is just justifying myself no no i use it i lean on it look at her that's not even a that doesn't even that's like what is that like i lean on it i use the machine i i do other things with it over justifying this verse actually you know if you if you drew a table and you looked at all the verses which verses support the akhenaten theory which verses support the hebrew theory this would actually go in there look i think right now we've gone on an incredible amount of time i did say i was going to keep it short and brief but i did you know what because your discussion

was interesting and i did i know there's other people out there that do uh are intrigued by this what i want to say very clearly reiterates is look i'm not saying to people that this is that because we don't have facts but we have theories we have evidences uh we're looking at certain kinds of evidences which may be sometimes subject to interpretation we're looking at them i've looked at this initially just like you thinking this is crazy i read into some things i don't buy into all things that the you know there's a it's not just written other people have written it most of us actually written on it before

in the 90s he wrote on it now it's not all of the things that they say always makes sense some of them i thought now this doesn't make sense some of them found quite intriguing the coincidences to be very wow okay what are the coincidence so i do find it plausible but i'm still investigating and i encourage people to investigate it show me the light as well but if you've got something cogent and you know like that just you know like it's like somebody said this evolution they said it's easy you know show me a rabbit mirror let's pull out a fossil that predates this it's a death switch the argument's over

and if i do find a death switch okay fair enough you know i'm not so invested in this it's not like i can argue from my limit you know it's not like i get something out of this so but i find it interesting so that's all i'd say is that the whole point is keeping an open mind rational faith shook him for joining us tonight yeah thank you i'll try and uh dm you on instagram if you're interested or anything so i can make a better argument when i'm writing and speaking because i don't have everything on hand ah well you see that's that's very telling cut and paste this one on my eyes no no no i don't have a good memory so i can't really remember much

this is where no no no i mean if i had anything i'm on my phone you're saying things no no i just i can't like recall all the names nope i didn't mean any disrespect no no no no and i never took it in a disrespectful way i get intense sometimes when i engage a debate but it's not in a kind of like an uh there's no animosity but for me it's just more of the fact that if you look at the entire theory in a cohesive way but you know

you know considering it's a rational faith you've called it's not very rational is it i'm joking i'm joking take care man stay blessed much love over and out