Tafsir of Ta-Ha 20:85

"He said: 'Indeed, We have...'"

By "the seduced people," He meant those whom he left behind with Aaron, numbering six hundred thousand. None of them were saved from the worship of the calf except for twelve thousand.

If you ask: The story states that they remained for twenty nights after his departure, and they counted them as forty including their days, saying: "We have completed the period." Then the affair of the calf occurred after that. How, then, can this be reconciled with the Almighty’s saying to Moses upon his arrival: "Indeed, We have seduced your people"?

I say: Allah the Almighty informed him of the impending sedition using the phrasing of something already present and existing, as is His custom. Or, the Samiri seized the opportunity of his absence, resolved to lead them astray immediately upon his departure, and began orchestrating it; thus, the beginning of the sedition was already present.

It is recited: "And the Samiri led them astray" (wa-aḍallahum al-Sāmirī), meaning he was the most intense of them in error, for he was one who was astray and led others astray. He is attributed to a tribe of the Children of Israel called the Samira. It is also said: The Samira are a people among the Jews who differ from them in some of their religion. It is also said: He was from the people of Bajarma. It is also said: He was a foreigner from Kerman. His name was Musa ibn Zafar; he was a hypocrite who manifested Islam, and he was from a people who worshipped cows.

"So Moses returned to his people, angry and sorrowful. He said: 'O my people, did your Lord not promise you a good promise? Did the time seem too long for you, or did you want wrath from your Lord to descend upon you, so you broke your promise to me?' They said: 'We did not break our promise to you by our own will, but we were made to carry burdens from the ornaments of the people, so we threw them [into the fire], and thus did the Samiri throw.' Then he brought out for them a calf, a body that had a lowing sound. So they said: 'This is your god and the god of Moses, but he forgot.'"