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death. The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue orders
the people of Israel: “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath
day to sanctify it.” [1] The students of the Bible know
how jealous God is reported to be concerning the strict
observation of the Day of Rest. Before Moses (pbuh) , there
was no special law about this; and the nomad Patriarchs
do not seem to have observed it. It is very likely that the
Jewish Sabbath had its origin in the Babylonian Sabattu.

The Quran repudiates the Jewish anthropomorphous
conception of the Deity, for it means to say, as if like
man, God laboured six days, got fatigued, reposed and
slumbered. The sacred verse of the Quran thus runs: “And
verily We have created the heavens and the earth, and
whatever is between them in six days; and no weariness
affected Us”[2] (50: 38).

The Jewish idea about the Sabbath had become too
material and insidious. Instead of making it a day of
comfortable rest and a pleasant holiday, it had been turned
into a day of abstinence and confinement. No cooking, no
walk, and no work of charity or beneficence were permitted

permitted. The priests in the temple would bake bread
and offer sacrifices on the Sabbath-day, but reproached
the Prophet of Nazareth when he cured miraculously a
man whose arm was withered. [3] To this, Christ said that
it was the Sabbath, which was instituted for the benefit of
man, and not man for the sake of the Sabbath. Instead of
making it a day of worship and then a day of recreation,
of innocent pleasure and real repose, they had made it
a day of imprisonment and weariness. The least breach
of any precept concerning the seventh day was punished
with lapidation or some other penalty. Moses (pbuh)

[1] Exod. xx.

[2] Quran 50 :38 We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in six
days, Nor did any sense of weariness touch Us.(Editors).

[3] . Matt. xii. 10-13.