Moses and the Stone — Refuting the Christian Objection to the Hadith of Prophetic Modesty and the Children of Israel
The hadith of Moses and the stone is not a story of humiliation — it is a story of divine vindication. God Himself caused the stone to run so that His prophet would be cleared of a false accusation by the Children of Israel, the killers of prophets.
A Christian writer submitted a series of objections to the hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah and recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim concerning Moses, peace be upon him, bathing alone while the Children of Israel bathed together. The writer expressed shock at the content of the hadith and asked a series of questions about the nature and purpose of its narration. The response below addresses every objection raised, establishes the correct meaning of the hadith, situates it within the Islamic theology of prophetic trial and divine vindication, and then turns the mirror on the questioner’s own scripture.
The most creative and truthful thing Jesus, peace be upon him, said was: “You hypocrite.”
The Hadith Under Attack — Full Text and Source
The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “The Children of Israel used to bathe naked, looking at each other’s private parts. Moses, peace be upon him, used to bathe alone. So they said: By God, nothing prevents Moses from bathing with us except that he has urinary incontinence. So one time he went to bathe and put his garment on a stone, and the stone ran away with his garment. So Moses ran after it, saying: ‘My garment, O stone! My garment, O stone!’ — until the Children of Israel looked at Moses, peace be upon him. They said: By God, there is nothing wrong with Moses. The stone stood, and Moses took his garment and began to strike the stone.”
Abu Hurairah said: By God, there were six or seven marks on the stone from where Moses struck it.
Narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim. The word “adar,” explained by al-Nawawi, refers to a physical defect attributed to Moses by the Children of Israel.
The Actual Meaning of the Hadith — Prophetic Modesty and Divine Vindication
The Christian polemicist opened by saying he had never heard of an insult to a prophet like this before. He has lied — but we will return to that. First, the meaning of the hadith must be established clearly, because the entire objection rests on a fundamental misreading of what the text says and what it is designed to establish.
The hadith is not a story about Moses being humiliated. It is a story about Moses being vindicated.
The narrative structure is as follows: the Children of Israel bathed together without covering themselves and looked at one another. Moses, peace be upon him, was a man of exceptional modesty and would bathe alone, refusing to expose himself even in a context where others did so openly. The Children of Israel — being who they are — could not accept that his modesty was simply modesty. They fabricated a slander: that he isolated himself because he had a physical defect, specifically adar, a condition they used to impugn his body and therefore his prophethood.
God Almighty did not allow this slander to stand. He caused the stone on which Moses placed his garment to move, so that Moses ran after it. The running was not nakedness chosen by Moses — it was the mechanism by which God arranged for the Children of Israel to see, with their own eyes, that there was no defect whatsoever on the body of His prophet. Their own accusation was turned against them. They were compelled to declare: “By God, there is nothing wrong with Moses.” God vindicated His prophet using the very situation the slanderers had created.
The marks on the stone from Moses striking it with his garment are a detail preserved by Abu Hurairah as a witness to the vigor of Moses’s response after his vindication — not a detail of scandal, but a detail of prophetic temperament and human emotion.
“O you who have believed, do not be like those who annoyed Moses, and Allah cleared him of what they said. And he was, in the sight of Allah, distinguished.” (Al-Ahzab: 69)
The Quran itself references this event — the harm caused to Moses by the Children of Israel and God’s clearing of him — as a warning to the believers not to imitate the behavior of those who harmed God’s prophet. The hadith is the narrative detail of that Quranic verse.
This is what distinguishes the Islamic tradition from the Biblical tradition on this point: in the Islamic account, God intervenes and clears His prophet. In the Biblical accounts of prophetic scandal — which we will address below — God does nothing to clear His prophets. He allows the accounts to stand as written.
Responding to the Specific Objections Point by Point
On the question of allowing harm to reach His prophets: God tests His prophets with those who deny them, combat them, and mock them. This is not humiliation — it is honor. The Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, was asked which people are most severely tested. He said: “The prophets, then the best, then the best. A man is tested according to his religion. If his religion is solid, his test will be severe.” [Al-Tirmidhi, authenticated by al-Albani in al-Silsilah al-Sahihah.] God Almighty said:
“If they deny you, [O Muhammad], so were messengers denied before you who brought clear proofs and scriptures and the enlightening Book.” (Al Imran: 184)
“And [mention] when Moses said to his people, ‘O my people, why do you harm me while you know that I am the Messenger of God to you?’” (Al-Saff: 61:5)
Ibn al-Qayyim explained the wisdom behind the testing of prophets in Bada’i’ al-Fawa’id:
On the question of the exposure itself: the exposure of Moses, peace be upon him, was entirely involuntary. He placed his garment on a stone and the stone moved — this was a divine arrangement for his vindication. He did not choose to walk naked before the Children of Israel. His running was in pursuit of his garment. He did not know anyone was observing him, and had he known, he would have covered himself. The exposure among people who were themselves accustomed to bathing together naked was not a scandal for Moses — it was a declaration by God that His prophet was exactly as he claimed to be: sound, whole, and unblemished.
The question the Christian should be asking is not why God allowed Moses’s private parts to be seen. The question is: why does your scripture contain accounts of its prophets doing far worse, with no divine vindication whatsoever?
The Testing of Prophets — A Theological Framework
The greatest tests were the share of the prophets, because if Allah loves a servant He tests him — so how about those who are the best of mankind? Al-Bukhari narrated that Waraqah ibn Nawfal said to the Prophet: “Oh, I wish I were a young man there. I wish I were alive when your people expel you.” The Messenger of Allah said: “Will they expel me?” He said: “Yes — no man has ever come with anything like what you have come with except that he was punished.”
God Almighty has aided His prophets and cleared them. He cleared Moses with a stone. He cleared Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, with revelation. He cleared Jesus, peace be upon him, by raising him. And as for what was attributed to Moses in this hadith — the slander of the Children of Israel — God turned their very plot back on them and made it the instrument of His prophet’s vindication.
The Christian Who Defends Prophetic Modesty — The Hypocrisy Exposed
The Christian writer claims he has never heard of a greater insult to a prophet than what this hadith contains. We genuinely admit that we are astonished — not at the hadith, but at the Christian who is suddenly a defender of prophetic dignity. Let us see what his own scripture says.
The Bible contains, attributed to the prophets themselves or to God’s actions toward them, the following:
The story of Lot and his two daughters: after the destruction of Sodom, Lot’s daughters made their father drunk on consecutive nights and had intercourse with him, and from this intercourse were born two of the ancestors of the nations (Genesis 19:30–38). This is not a slander by enemies — it is narrated in the scripture as historical fact, with no divine vindication of Lot whatsoever.
The story of David and Bathsheba: David, the prophet and king, saw Bathsheba bathing, desired her, summoned her, had intercourse with her while she was the wife of Uriah, and then arranged for Uriah to be placed in the front line of battle so that he would be killed (2 Samuel 11). This is narrated in the Bible as historical fact, with a rebuke from the prophet Nathan — but no clearing of David in the sense that the Islamic God clears His prophet Moses.
The story of Solomon’s apostasy: Solomon, the prophet and king, is described as having his heart turned away from God by his foreign wives, and as having built altars to foreign gods (1 Kings 11:1–10). The Bible narrates this as fact.
And then there is Isaiah.
Isaiah 20 — The Biblical Prophet Who Walked Naked for Three Years
Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years by the explicit command of the Lord. Not for a brief moment while running after a stone. Not involuntarily as a result of a divine arrangement to vindicate him. For three full years, by divine command, as a sign against Egypt and Cush.
The questions this raises for the Christian polemicist are direct:
If Moses running naked for the brief moments it took to retrieve his garment — involuntarily, as part of God’s vindication of his prophetic honor — is an “insult to a prophet of God” so severe that the Christian has “never heard of anything like it,” then what is Isaiah walking naked for three full years by the explicit command of his Lord?
If seeing Moses’s private parts for a moment is a scandal, what is three years of naked public walking?
If God did not allow His prophet to be humiliated, what does the Christian say about God commanding Isaiah to remove his garments and walk naked as a sign and wonder?
And if the word “Master” or “Lord” — referring to God — is used in the verse commanding this action, is there a reasonable explanation?
The Islamic position: God protects, aids, and vindicates His prophets. The hadith of Moses and the stone is evidence of that protection.
The Biblical position, by its own text: God may command His prophets to perform acts that the Christian polemicist would — if he applied his own standard consistently — call humiliating and degrading.
You hypocrite — first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.