[Moses] said, "You have already known that none has sent down these [signs] except the Lord of the heavens and the earth as evidence, and indeed I think, O Pharaoh, that you are destroyed."
Allah tells us that He sent Musa with nine clear signs, which provided definitive proof that his prophethood was real and that what he was conveying from the One Who had sent him to Fira`wn was true. These clear signs were: his staff, his hand, the years of famine, the sea, the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood. This was the view of Ibn `Abbas. Muhammad bin Ka`b said, "They were his hand and his staff, the five signs mentioned in Al-A`raf, and destruction of wealth and the rock." Ibn `Abbas, Mujahid, `Ikrimah, Ash-Sha`bi and Qatadah said: "They are his hand, his staff, the years of famine, the failure of the crops, the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood."
The first verse (101): وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ تِسْعَ آيَاتٍ mentions the bestowal of nine clear signs on Sayyidna Musa (علیہ السلام) . The word: آیَہ ('ayah) carries the meaning of miracle or sign as well as that of the آیَت : ayat or verses of the Qur'an, that is, the divine injunctions. At this place, the probability of both meanings exists. Therefore, a number of commentators have taken the word 'ayat' to mean miracles - and the number nine does not make it necessary that they will not be more than nine - but, at this place, the figure 'nine' has been mentioned on the basis of some particular importance it has. Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Abbas ؓ has enumerated these miracles as follows:
Man is narrow-minded. He wants to build up all kinds of status for himself or for his group. If the distribution of all kinds of blessings had been in the hands of man, surely the rich and the powerful would in addition have reserved prophethood for themselves. But God sees everything in terms of merit rather than community biases. He looks at all human beings and selects the best person out of the entire human race for prophethood. Had prophethood been conferred by human beings, their choice would certainly have been characterised by communal biases and prejudices rather than by merit.
Uthmani text of the Madinah mushaf (King Fahd Complex). Translation: Saheeh International. Tafsir via Quran.com.
![Surah Al-Isra 17:102 in Arabic with its translation: “[Moses] said, "You have already known that none has sent down these [signs] except the Lord of the heavens…”](/surah/al-isra/102/image.jpg)