Aaron the Prophet

Aaron is believed to be a Prophet in Islam and is known as Harun, which is the Arabic name for Aaron. He was the brother of Moses. In the Quran Aaron was not involved with the creation of the Golden Calf and made efforts to dissuade the Israelites from worshiping it, a significant difference from the older texts. Aaron is considered a type of Christ, the high priest of the new dispensation. Aaron’s function included the duties of speaker and implied personal dealings with the Egyptian royal court on behalf of Moses, who was always the central moving ####figure. The part played by Aaron in the events that preceded the Exodus was, therefore, ministerial, and not directive. He, along with Moses, performed “signs” before his people which impressed them with a belief in the reality of the divine mission of the brothers. At the command of Moses he stretched out his rod in order to bring on the first three plagues. In the infliction of the remaining plagues he appears to have acted merely as the attendant of Moses, whose outstretched rod drew the divine wrath upon the Pharaoh and his subjects. The potency of Aaron’s rod had already been demonstrated by its victory over the rods of the Egyptian magicians, which it swallowed after all the rods alike had been turned into serpents. in the Qur'an, Aaron is not the idol-maker and upon Moses' return begged his pardon as he had felt mortally threatened by the Israelites. At the intercession of Moses, Aaron was saved from the plague which smote the people, although it was to Aaron’s tribe of Levi that the work of punitive vengeance was committed.
Death
soon after the incident at Meribah, Aaron, with his son Eleazar and Moses, ascended Mount Hor. There Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments and transferred them to Eleazar. Aaron died on the summit of the mountain, and the people mourned for him thirty days.

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