Until the findings of Egyptology became known to them, all that most Egyptians knew about Pharaoh was what they learned from the Qur'an, and the image of Pharaoh in the Qur'an is much the same as in the Old Testament. For Muslims as for Christians and Jews, Pharaoh was the archetypal pagan tyrant and oppressor in which the heroes are the Banūh Isrā'īl, the children of Israel. The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, p.