Biblical and Quranic narratives state. Pharaoh and his army drowned. (Exodus 14:7, II:47) Moses left the Hebrews for forty nights. He put his brother Aaron in charge of the people (Al-Baqara|2.48) On a mountain, God gave Moses a revelation of precepts for Israel to follow. God made tablets with writing on them which Moses carried back to Israel. Moses asked to see God. The people saw the fire and lightning and the mountain and were afraid. While Moses was gone, the Israelites demanded to worship an idol. They used the gold from their ornaments to construct a golden calf whom they said was the
Golden calf believe until they had witnessed God with their sight. As punishment, God struck the delegates with lightning and killed them with a violent earthquake. Moses prayed to God for their forgiveness. God forgave and resurrected them and they continued on their journey. In the Islamic view, the calf-worshipers' sin had been shirk (), the sin of idolatry or polytheism. Shirk is the deification or worship of anyone or anything other than Allah, or more literally the establishment of "partners" placed beside God, a most serious and unforgivable sin, with the calf-worshipers' being ultimately forgiven being a mark of special forbearance