Describe for us the speech of the Most Merciful.' He said: 'Exalted is Allah, I cannot do it.' They said: 'Then provide a similitude.' He said: 'Have you not seen the sounds of the thunderbolts that arrive in a desolate expanse? You have heard them; it is similar to that, yet it is not exactly that.' Harun added, saying: 'When Allah, Blessed and Exalted, spoke to Moses, He spoke to him with gentle speech, but when He spoke to him on the day of the Mount, He spoke to him with a speech different from that,' and he mentioned the rest of it similarly.

8926 - My father told us, Muhammad ibn Bakkar ibn al-Rayyan al-Rusafi told us, Abu Ma'shar told us, from Abu al-Huwayrith, he said: Allah, the Exalted, spoke to Moses with speech that Moses could endure, and had He spoken with all of His speech, he would not have been able to endure it. So Moses remained for forty nights, and no one would see him but that they would die from the light of the Lord of the worlds.

8927 - My father told us, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-A'la told us, Muhammad ibn Thawr told us, from Ma'mar, from al-Zuhri, from Abu Bakr ibn 'Abd al-Rahman, that Jarir ibn Jabir al-Khath'ami informed him that he heard Ka'b al-Ahbar saying: 'When Allah spoke to Moses, He spoke to him in all languages before His own language, and he began to say: "O my Lord, by Allah, I do not understand this," until He spoke to him last in His language with a voice like His own. He said: "O my Lord, is this Your speech?" Allah said: "If I were to speak to you with My speech, you would not be anything." He said: "O my Lord, is there anything among Your creation similar to Your speech?" He said: "No, and the closest of My creation in resemblance to My speech is what people hear of the thunderbolts."

8928 - Abu Zur'ah told us, 'Abd Allah ibn Barrad al-Ash'ari told us, Abu Usamah told us, from Ibn al-Mubarak, Ma'mar and Yunus told me, from al-Zuhri, from Abu Bakr ibn 'Abd al-Rahman, that he was informed by someone who heard Ka'b al-Ahbar (recite) part of this hadith.

8929 - Yunus ibn 'Abd al-A'la reported to us by way of recitation, Ibn Wahb informed us, Bakr ibn Mudar informed me, from Ibn 'Ajlan, he said: Allah spoke to Moses in all languages, and among them was a word in the Berber language, so He said to him in Berber: "I am Allah, the Great."

8930 - Muhammad ibn Yahya told us, 'Ali ibn al-Madini reported, Muhammad ibn 'Amr ibn Miqsam told us, he said: I heard 'Ata' ibn Muslim saying: I heard Wahb ibn Munabbih saying: Allah spoke to Moses in one thousand stations. Whenever He spoke to him, the light would be visible on the face of Moses for three days, and then Moses did not touch a woman after his Lord had spoken to him.