al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:29-31

Qāla la-ini'ttakhadhta ilāhan ghayrī la-ajʿalannaka mina'l-masjūnīn · Qāla a-wa law jiʾtuka bi-shayʾin mubīn · Qāla fa'ti bihi in kunta mina'ṣ-ṣādiqīn

"[Pharaoh] said: 'If you take a god other than me, I will surely make you one of the imprisoned.' · [Moses] said: 'Even if I bring you something clear?' · [Pharaoh] said: 'Bring it, then, if you are one of the truthful!'"

Pharaoh's fourth utterance ends the debate. What ran from the twenty-third verse to the twenty-eighth was a question and answer; in the twenty-ninth verse the response is given not to the answer but to the speaker.

The order is worth recording:

I record this as an observation: four stages advancing along a line that moves away from argument. And at the last stage Pharaoh states his own claim openly for the first time: ilāhan ghayrī — "a god other than me". In the eighteenth verse he had implied it with a verb (a-lam nurabbika); now he says it with a word.

A point of word order worth recording, and a mould that will be repeated in the sūra.

Pharaoh does not say "I will imprison you" (la-asjunannaka). He says "I will make you one of the imprisoned": la-ajʿalannaka mina'l-masjūnīn.

In Arabic this construction (verb + min + definite plural) means adding a person to a group, and the lexicographers record that it makes the threat heavier: the person does not become a prisoner on his own; he is put inside a known class.

And this mould occurs more than fifteen times in the sūra. Often enough to deserve a table:

The sūra thus recounts people not one by one but by membership of a group. Everyone is placed inside a plural: among the messengers, among the sorcerers, among the liars, among the expelled, among those punished.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the count above: the closing of the sūra uses the same technique — wa'sh-shuʿarāʾu yattabiʿuhumu'l-ghāwūn (224) and illā 'lladhīna āmanū (227). At its end too the sūra makes a distinction of groups.

شَىْءٍ مُّبِين — "something clear". Indefinite. Moses does not say what he will bring.

A point of word order: leaving the noun indefinite allows the claim to be set up against the threat. Moses is not bargaining, he promises no miracle — he asks for the ground of the threat: "even if I bring a proof?"

And the a-wa law pattern must be recorded: hamza (interrogative) + wāw + law (conditional). In English: "even if…?" This pattern does the same work in another place in the Qurʾān: a-wa law jiʾtukum bi-ahdā mimmā wajadtum ʿalayhi ābāʾakum (al-Zukhruf 43/24 — treated in al-Zukhruf). In both verses the pattern is set against a closed attitude.

Pharaoh does not withdraw the threat; but he accepts the demand.

I record this as an observation: the scene continues with permission given for the proof to be shown. And after the proof is shown (32-33), Pharaoh's reaction will be not to reject the proof but to name it: inna hādhā la-sāḥirun ʿalīm (34).

إِن كُنتَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِين — the same mould again: the person is assigned to a group. And the conditional particle is in, not idhā — in Arabic in is used for the doubtful, idhā for the certain.