Ta-Ha, 135 Meccan verses opening with two of the 'disjointed letters,' is largely devoted to Moses, his call at the burning bush, his commission to Pharaoh with his brother Aaron, the contest with the magicians, and the golden calf made by the Samiri. Tradition holds this surah was being read in the house of Umar ibn al-Khattab at the moment of his conversion.
Umar ibn al-Khattab's conversion narrative, preserved in the biographical tradition, describes him going in anger to confront his sister and her husband over reports they had joined Muhammad, only to hear them reciting the opening verses of Ta-Ha and, once he read the pages himself, being moved to profess faith immediately, an episode Islamic historiography treats as a turning point given Umar's later role as the second caliph. The surah's account of Moses at the burning bush (20:9-24) is distinguished among the Quran's several retellings by its emphasis on the removal of sandals in the sacred valley of Tuwa and the naming of God's own self-description, 'I am God, there is no god but Me' (20:14), read by commentators as the clearest first-person divine self-identification given to any prophet in the Quranic narrative. Al-Qurtubi's commentary on the golden calf episode notes the surah attributes the calf's making specifically to a figure called al-Samiri rather than to Aaron, a detail that shifts blame away from the prophet left in charge and has generated extensive exegetical discussion of al-Samiri's identity, unresolved beyond the Quran's own account.