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Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40:26-27

The Qurʾān · Sūra 40: Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) · verses 26-27

This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.

40/26-27

وَقَالَ فِرْعَوْنُ ذَرُونِىٓ أَقْتُلْ مُوسَىٰ وَلْيَدْعُ رَبَّهُۥٓ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ أَن يُبَدِّلَ دِينَكُمْ أَوْ أَن يُظْهِرَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ٱلْفَسَادَ

"Pharaoh said: 'Leave me to kill Moses; and let him call upon his Lord! For I fear that he will change your religion, or that he will bring corruption out into the land.'"

A justification in two sentences

Pharaoh's speech is made of two parts, and both are worth recording.

The first: dharūnī aqtul Mūsā — "leave me, let me kill him."

The construction of the sentence is odd, and the lexicographers dwell on it: the most powerful man in the country speaks as though asking someone's leave. I record this as an observation and transmit both readings: either there is an opinion around him that is holding him back, or this is for show — a sentence framed to display his resolve to those around him.

The second: the justification. Innī akhāfu an yubaddila dīnakum aw an yuẓhira fi'l-arḍi'l-fasād"I fear."

And the subject of the fear has two items: the changing of the order, and corruption.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the words themselves: the decision to kill is presented not with a claim to power but with a justification of protection. And the word in the justification is fasād — that is, the crime the other side is said to be about to commit is exactly the name of what is being committed here. The sūra does not interpret this; it transmits the sentence as it stands and leaves it there.


The whole of Sūrat Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin)