Surah Al-Qasas 28:29-42 - Quran Translation Commentary

(28:29) Then, when Musa had completed the term,⁵³ and was journeying with his family,⁵⁴ he perceived a fire in the direction of the Tur. He said to his family, ‘Wait. I have indeed perceived a fire. Perhaps I will bring to you some information from there, or a burning firebrand that you may warm yourselves.⁵⁵

(28:30) When he came to it he was called from the edge of the valley on the right side,⁵⁶ in a hallowed (piece of) ground, coming from a tree, ‘O Musa. Verily I, I am Allah, the Lord of the worlds.’⁵⁷

(28:31) And that, ‘Cast your staff.’ Then, when he saw it quivering as if a snake,⁵⁸ he turned back in retreat and did not retrace his steps. ‘O Musa, come forward and fear not, you are of those who are secure.

(28:32) Thrust your hand in your pocket,⁵⁹ it will come forth (shining) bright without any blemish. And draw your hand to your side against any fear.⁶⁰ These are two proofs⁶¹ from your Lord unto Fir`awn and his chiefs. Indeed, they have been a people given to transgression.’

(28:33) He said, ‘My Lord! I have indeed killed one of their men. So I fear that they will slay me (instantly).’⁶²

(28:34) And my brother Harun, he is more eloquent than I in speech, therefore, send him with me as a support, to corroborate me.⁶³ I am indeed afraid they will lay the lie on me.

(28:35) He said, ‘We shall surely strengthen your arm with your brother⁶⁴ and shall vouchsafe unto you both an authority,⁶⁵ so that they shall not be able to reach you:⁶⁶ with Our signs, you two, and those who followed you, shall be the overcomers.’⁶⁷

(28:36) Then, when Musa came to them with Our clear signs, they said, ‘This is nothing but faked magic, we have not heard of this among our fathers of old.’

(28:37) Musa said, ‘My Lord knows best who has brought guidance from Him, and for whom will be the ultimate Abode. Surely, wrongdoers will not prosper.’

(28:38) Fir`awn said, ‘O chiefs. I do not know of any other deity for you besides me.⁶⁸ Therefore, kindle for me O Haman, (a fire) upon clay⁶⁹ and build for me a tall edifice that I may have a look at Musa’s god.⁷⁰ Surely I think he is of the liars.’

(28:39) And he waxed proud in the land – he and his forces – without right, and thought that they will not be returned to Us.

(28:40) So We seized him and his forces, and flung them into the sea.⁷¹ See then, how was the end of the wrongdoers.

(28:41) We made them leaders inviting to the Fire;⁷² and, on the Day of Standing, they shall not be helped.

(28:42) And We made a curse to follow them in this world,⁷³ and, on the Day of Standing they will be of the loathed ones.

Commentary

53. What term was it? Was it the term of the marriage contract? Sayyid has an entirely different perspective in mind. Could it be the term of training and preparation? He elaborates: “Life in palaces is spent in a special kind of environment where it follows its own customs. The milieu there leaves a certain kind of impression on the heart, no matter how well a soul is possessed of knowledge, understanding, and purity of heart. But Messengership is in the service of all kinds of people. Among them are the rich and the poor, the possessed and the deprived, the pure and the impure, the cultured and the coarse, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the patient and the grumbling ones, and so on. Moreover, the poor have their own manners of eating, drinking, dressing and conducting their affairs. Their way of understanding the affairs, their notions concerning this life, their way of talking and moving, and their way of expressing feelings, are those that are a bit hard for those to appreciate who have been brought up in the comforts of palaces. Little chance the latter have of even seeing the life of the lowly ones, far from attempting to reform them – no matter how good the hearts of the poor ones, and how ready for improvement they are. The basic problem is that their lives and manners are something to which the residents of palaces do not open their hearts.

“Messengership on the other hand, means discomforts, some ruggedness, and of course requires some hard work, while the hearts of those who live in palaces, however prepared for sacrifices, however used to humbleness and equanimity, cannot bear long in patience when faced with deprivations, hardships, and difficulties of sorts in a life of very different settings and atmosphere than those they are used to.

“Allah wished then – who was moving Musa’s steps – that he should descend down from what he was used to, into the company of shepherds, and to make him realize the blessing there is in shepherding a flock of sheep, having found, after hunger and hardships, a refuge and provision ... and that he should root out from his inner self any repugnance there could have been for poverty, and the poverty-stricken, … root out the feelings of any revulsion against their ways and manners, their rustic ways and simplicity, their ignorance, poverty and shabbiness. He was forced deep into the wide sea, before he was ready to face its waves at the shore … all this in order to train him in the burden of Messengership that he was destined to bear…

“Thus we see, how Musa was prepared by Allah, under His own supervision, and how he was readied for the hardships he was about to face as he started on this in his way”

54. Some of the Salaf have said that Musa had with him his wife and two children (Au.), which is also reported in the Bible (Majid).

55. As mentioned earlier, it was a dark, rainy and cold night in which Musa (asws) had lost his way (Ibn Kathir and others).

56. Most scholars have understood this to mean, “from the right side of Musa.” Nonetheless, there is room to believe that the word “ayman” has been used in the sense of “hallowed” (Ibn Kathir, Asad and others).

57. Mahdawi has said that Allah (swt) spoke to Musa from above His `Arsh and made him hear His voice from the tree. Allah should not be attributed with movements that are the attributes of His creations. Abu Is-haq on the other hand said that Allah created a meaning within Musa’s mind with the help of which he was able to grasp the words of Allah when He spoke to him – His speech being a specialty to Him (Qurtubi).

Al-Ash`ari and Imam Ghazali maintain that Musa heard Allah’s own Eternal Voice, which was devoid of any sound, and devoid of any words.

58. “Jann” according to most commentators, though not all, is a little snake, fearsome for its swift movement. Tho`ban used elsewhere in the Qur’an, is for a large, and hence slow moving snake, a python, whereas “hayyah” is a common noun for snakes. It has been explained that, firstly, it took several shapes, suitable to the occasions, and secondly it evinced all qualities of snakes at once, i.e., even when it became a python, it moved as swiftly as a thin little snake, stirring great panic in the crowds (Au.).

59. This is how Ibn Jarir understands the textual word “jayb.”

60. That is, ‘whenever fear or terror strike you, press your hand to your side, you will be cured of it.’ That is how Mujahid and Qatadah understood it (Ibn Kathir and others).

Literally, ‘Draw thy wing close to thy side, (away) from fear’. When a bird is frightened, it ruffles its wings and prepares to fly away, but when it is calm and composed, it sits with its wings drawn close to its sides, showing a mind secure from danger (Yusuf Ali).

The following we quote to demonstrate the decency among the Salaf and to show the extent to which their minds were filled with the Qur'an, to come to fore at a moment when you would expect an ordinary person to betray a smile. Qurtubi reports that once wind escaped a secretary of `Umar b. `Abd al-`Aziz. He felt embarrassed, threw down his pen in disgust and stood up. `Umar told him, “Take your pen, draw your hand to your side, and do away with any embarrassment for I have not heard it from anyone more than I heard it from myself.”

61. That is, the staff which turned into snake, and the hand which turned shiny white when brought out of the pocket (Ibn Kathir and others).

62. That is, “before I get time to deliver the message” (Majid).

63. Musa did not mean when he said, “to corroborate me” that when he claimed Messengership before Fir`awn, Har un would attest and confirm his claim, but rather he would use his eloquent tongue to offer convincing arguments on his behalf (Zamakhshari, Razi).

‘It is not that Moses is not reassured from all fear on account of the apparent snake which his rod had become, or from the sacred and unfamiliar surroundings in which he found himself. On this point his heart has been completely assured. But he is still new to his mission, and the future is obscure to his mind. Pharaoh was after him, to take his life, and apparently with good cause, because one of Pharaoh’s men had been slain at his hands. And now he is commanded to go to Pharaoh and rebuke him and his Chiefs. The inner doubts and difficulties of his human mind he frankly lays before his Lord, and asks for a little human and visible support, which is granted him at once, viz.; the help of his brother Aron (Yusuf Ali).

64. That is, ‘We shall strengthen your cause through your brother.’ This was done by making Harun (asws) a Prophet, for which Musa had prayed. Hence some of the Salaf have said that no one did a brother greater good than Musa to Harun when he prayed for his Prophethood. See 19: 53 (Ibn Kathir).

65. The Bible has a twist here. It reports (Ex. 7: 1), “And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.” Thus Musa became a god unto Fir`awn and Harun his, and not Allah’s, prophet (Au.).

66. That is, they will not be able to do you any harm (Zamakhshari, Razi).

This is similar to what was said to our own Prophet (5: 67),

{يَا أَيُّهَا الرَّسُولُ بَلِّغْ مَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِنْ رَبِّكَ وَإِنْ لَمْ تَفْعَلْ فَمَا بَلَّغْتَ رِسَالَتَهُ وَاللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ النَّاسِ} [المائدة: 67]

“O Messenger, proclaim what has been sent down to you by your Lord. If you did not, you would not have delivered His message. Allah will protect you from the people” (Ibn Kathir).

67. As Allah said (58: 21),

{كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَأَغْلِبَنَّ أَنَا وَرُسُلِي إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ} [المجادلة: 21]

“Allah has written that He and His Messengers shall overcome.”

He also said (40: 51),

{إِنَّا لَنَنْصُرُ رُسُلَنَا وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا} [غافر: 51]

“Surely We shall help Our Messengers and those who followed them in the life of this world” (Ibn Kathir).

68. What this implied on Fir`awn’s part is that he had no evidence that God existed; and, according to him, that which lacked evidence did not exist: an error commonly committed by many people (Razi).

This trend is most common among the atheists, and, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, among the scientists who know it as the first scientific principle, viz. what they do not have evidence for, can neither be rejected nor accepted. One should observe complete neutrality in such matters. But most often they take sides against some perennial and, in some cases, self-evident, truths (Au.).

A few details of the denial are given elsewhere in the Qur’an. Allah said (79: 23-24),

{فَحَشَرَ فَنَادَى (23) فَقَالَ أَنَا رَبُّكُمُ الْأَعْلَى} [النازعات: 23، 24]

“Then he gathered (his people) and cried aloud, saying, ‘I am your Lord, the supreme’” (Ibn Kathir).

Mawdudi writes: “By saying so, Pharaoh obviously did not mean that he was their creator and the creator of the heavens and the earth… Nor did it mean that they worshipped no other God besides Pharaoh because it is well known that they worshipped many gods and Pharaoh, himself, had been raised to the status of godhead in his capacity as the incarnation of Ra, the sun-god. The Qur’an itself provides a definite testimony in this regard, for it mentions that Pharaoh worshipped many gods: ‘The elders of Pharaoh’s people said, “Will you leave alone Moses and his people to spread mischief in the land, and forsake you and your gods” (Al-A`raf 7: 127).’

“Hence the word ‘god’ used here by Pharaoh for himself was not to claim that he was their creator and their sole object of worship. He rather used this word in the sense that he was the lord and master of Egypt where his command was executed; where he was considered to have full authority, and where people considered themselves bound to obey him, and where he was the absolute sovereign whose orders were carried out, and where he was in a position to decide what was good and what was evil, and where no one else had the authority to issue any commands. In this context, Pharaoh wondered what the locus standi of Moses was.”

Although there is perhaps much truth in the above statement, but perhaps lesser in what follows thereafter in the original work, yet the fact remains that Pharaoh did assume some kind of divinity, and was considered invested with divine qualities, sounds obvious from the Qur’anic statements in this regard, here, and elsewhere (Au.).

Majid gives us the historical background to give us an idea of the somewhat ambiguous position Pharaoh held vis-à-vis, godhead, and which comes closer to explaining the Qur’anic expressions: “Pharaoh-worship was very much akin to Mikado-worship, and the ‘divinity’ of the ancient Egyptian Imperious House bore close resemblance to that of the present-day Japanese Imperial House. The Pharaoh was a veritable Incarnate Deity. ‘The king in that first monarchy was the visible god upon earth. The only thing like it that has been since seen is the deification of the Roman emperor. No pure monotheism would for a moment have been compatible with such an intense exaltation.’ (Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, Intro p. xxxvi) ‘It is a well-known fact that the Egyptians, from the earliest traceable period of their history, believed their kings to be embodied forms of certain gods … The reigning king was regarded as “Horus” (the national god of lower Egypt in pre-historic times, and, later, of the whole kingdom) … The reigning king was styled “the good god,” or at an earlier day, “the great god.” (ERE, VI, p. 647). Pharaoh ‘was not merely looked upon as the earthly representative of the god Horus … but he was actually regarded as a form or manifestation of that god. The king was therefore a god, and indeed was commonly spoken of as the “good god.” Moreover, by the time of the Vth dynasty the king was believed to be the physical son of the sun-god, the State-god of Egypt.’ (X. p. 294).”

69. The translation is literal, otherwise, the meaning is, “manufacture bricks for me” (Ibn Jarir). Nonetheless, either we believe our Prophet was a veritable encyclopaedia of knowledge, the like of whom did not appear earlier or later, or accept him as a Messenger of Allah. How did he, for instance, know such architectural details as Majid brings to our notice? Majid writes: “Note that brick, rather than stone was the general building material used in ancient Egypt, and the Egyptians were well-known for brick-making. ‘The true countries of brick-makers were Egypt and Mesopotamia … Egyptian bricks were usually twice the size of our modern ones. Many of them (from dynasty 18 onwards) were stamped with the name of a king, to show that they belonged to public buildings … Stamps as well as moulds have been preserved up to the modern times, and bricks with the name of Ramses II, “the Pharaoh of the oppression,” are shown in our museums.’ (EBi. C. 609). ‘Egypt has yielded numerous examples of brick, manufactured in the earliest and subsequent dynasties.’ (EBr. IV. P. 111).

70. There is no way to establish whether the edifice was built or not. Common sense tells us that it was not built. As for the stories that have been narrated concerning the edifice that was built, they only serve to open doors for attack by the adversaries of the Qur’an (Razi).

Elsewhere in this work, we have mentioned the Soviets trying to locate God in the skies. Mawdudi comments a little bit in detail on this point: “This mindset is similar to that of the Communists of the former Soviet Union. They launched sputniks … and then glibly claimed that their spaceships had found no God up there in the sky… This only shows that the reasoning of ignorant people has not changed over the last 3,500 years. What idiocy to believe that God is sitting somewhere up there in the sky waiting to be observed by anyone who can soar high enough. What idiocy to believe that if He cannot be so found, this is proof enough that He does not exist.”

71. The choice of words, [“flung them”] is to express the worthlessness of the man and his army, flung away, (like they were no more than a dead lizard: Au.) – Zamakhshari, Razi.

72. In the words of Asad, “archetypes inviting to the fire.”

That is, they became examples for the evil-minded people of all times, who could take lessons of the failure of tyranny and injustice from them (Alusi and others).

73. That is, (although cursing is generally disallowed), cursing Fir`awn and his forces has been made lawful to the believers.