Surah As-Saffat, Ayah 126

إِذْ قَالَ لِقَوْمِهِ أَلاَ تَتَّقُونَ

(When he said to his people: "Will you not have Taqwa") means, `do you not fear Allah when you worship others instead of Him'

أَتَدْعُونَ بَعْلاً وَتَذَرُونَ أَحْسَنَ الْخَـلِقِينَ

(Will you call upon Ba`l and forsake the Best of creators,) Ibn `Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, Mujahid, `Ikrimah, Qatadah and As-Suddi said that the word Ba`l means lord. `Ikrimah and Qatadah said, "This is the language of the people of Yemen." According to another report from Qatadah, it is the language of Azd Shanu'ah. `Abdur-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam narrated from his father that it is the name of an idol which was worshipped by the people of a city called Ba`labak (Baalbek) which is to the west of Damascus. Ad-Dahhak said, "It is an idol which they used to worship."

The word: بَعل (ba'l) in verse 125: أَتَدْعُونَ بَعْلًا (Do you invoke literally means husband, master etc. But, it was the name of a particular idol that the people of Sayyidna Ilyas (علیہ السلام) had taken to as the object of their worship. The history of the worship of ba` l (Baal) goes way back in time. It was worshipped in the country of Syria during the time of Sayyidna Musa (علیہ السلام) and it used to be the most popular idol-god they had. Ba'labakk, (Baalbek or ancient Heliopolis in present Lebanon), the once famous city of Syria was also named after it. Some people think that Hubal, the well-known idol of the pre-Islam people of Hijaz, was this very ba` l (Qasas-ul-Qur’ an, p.28, v.2).

God helped the Prophet Moses and his community and relieved them from the oppression of Pharaoh. This was made possible through the dawah work performed by Moses. He preached the truth before Pharaoh. After the completion of the tenure of his dawah mission came the time for Pharaoh to be pronounced guilty and to be destroyed; and for Moses and his community to be victorious and dominant. In this context, one of the meanings of ‘showing the straight path’ is that the right solution to the problem of Pharaoh was revealed to them. Though this was a problem faced at the community level, its solution nevertheless lay in communicating the divine message. So, the victory and supremacy which they achieved was the result of dawah efforts and was not due to any national struggle or rebellion against Pharaoh in the usual sense.