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Taking Off The Shoes in The Valley of Tuwa
It is mentioned that Al-Mahdi (PUH), the awaited, may our souls be a ransom to him, was asked about God's commandment for Moses to take off his shoes by saying: So take off thy shoes, for lo! thou art in the holy valley of Tuwa(TaHa:12), so the one asking said: the scholars of the two creeds [he did not appoint which creeds at that time] say that this commandment was because it (the shoes) were made of skin (of the dead animals), so he (PUH) said what was in general like: whoever said that had made lies about Moses and did not know truely his prophecy, because such matter has two relative conditions: either the prayers of Moses was accepted, or it was not accepted, so if praying with it (the shoes of skin) was accepted and allowed, then it is allowed for Moses to wear it also in that holy spot even if it was a sacred place, and if praying was not allowed with it then they had pointed out that Moses knows nothing about the allowed and what is not allowed and how the prayer is accepted and how it is not, and this is a disbelieve. So then the one asking said: then I said to him (PUH): O master then what is the interpretation of this? So he (PUH) said: Moses was in the holy valley and he showed to his Lord the absolute love and sincerity and the great happiness for speaking to Him without a medium betweem both of them and for making him a messanger to the pharaoh that he was afraid of him and of his people, so then God said to him: if you are truely loving Me and sincere then take off your shoes meaning take off the love of your family and people and make it all to Me and do not make it busy with something else, Allah hath not assigned unto any man two hearts within his body(Al-Ahzâb:4).
It is mentioned that Moses loved his wife so much and he left her with her birth pains without someone to take care of her in coldness and in wilderness, and went on searching for fire and then he met that great happiness.
It is mentioned in Torah that Moses (PUH) had a son and he called Gershom, and it is a name that gives a feeling of being strange. We have the right to talk about the matter of taking off the shoes and talk about what is apparent and understood in the regulations of those who regulate, and that the commandment from Him, the Exalted, to take off the shoes was to be polite in that holy spot, and because he (Moses) was in front of the Great of heavens and earth and their Creator, and he was talking to the One that has everything in His hands and He is the Resurrector and the Eternal, the Lord of angels and the soul, so in that situation Moses even should have crawled on his knees and prostrate on the live coal for the God of the worlds, with addition of taking of the shoes, and he should have forget about everything else and only work his heart and his senses with his real Lord and his Creator that speaks to him, and being with bare foots is a sign of humiliation, and to get the bless from the soil of the holy spot, and for this reason the old faithful people used to pilgrimage around Kaaba with bare foots. Then Moses wore his shoes like everyone else to protect his feet from being polluted and against insects and shocks from rocks and thorns and so on, and maybe God ordered him to take them off because He made him safe in that spot and He told him about the purity of that spot.
It is mentioned that once the prophet (PUH) was asked: why the valley of Tuwa was called the holy valley? He said: because in it the souls were sanctified and the angels were chosen and there God spoke to Moses. As attributed to Ibn-`Abbâs about the meaning of the mount of Sinai he said that it is every mountain that has olive trees on it or any other fruitful trees that people might use, and every mountain that has such characteristics is called the mount of Sinai , and if it has nothing that people might use of plants or trees it would not be called by this name but only called a mountain, so we say: language is the source whenever we doubt about the meaning of something in the language, and the holy phrases that point out to this matter are a lot, and in the chapter of TaHa: Hath there come unto thee the story of Moses ? When he saw a fire and said unto his folk: Lo! Wait! I see a fire afar off. Peradventure I may bring you a brand therefrom or may find guidance at the fire.And when he reached it, he was called by name: O Moses! Lo! I, even I, am thy Lord, So take off thy shoes, for lo! thou art in the holy valley of Tuwa(TaHa:9-12), and the holy phrases are a lot in many chapters: Al-Qasas, Al-Forqân, Al-Shu`arâ', Al-Sajdah, Al-Nâzi`ât, and others, and they interpret each other, and its matter is not hidden from the sacred faith and its people.

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