al-Dhāriyāt 51:38-40

Wa fī Mūsā idh arsalnāhu ilā Firʿawna bi-sulṭānin mubīn · Fa-tawallā bi-ruknihi wa qāla sāḥirun aw majnūn · Fa-akhadhnāhu wa junūdahu fa-nabadhnāhum fi'l-yammi wa huwa mulīm "And in Moses too — when We sent him to Pharaoh with a clear authority. But he turned away with his pillar of strength and said, 'A magician, or a madman.' So We seized him and his hosts and cast them into the sea; and he had brought blame upon himself."

And here the sūra's weave of word order comes into play a second time.

Up to the twenty-second verse four verses had opened with wāw + fī (wealth, the earth, yourselves, the sky). Now the same pattern opens four narratives:

38: وَفِى مُوسَىٰ — and in Moses too 41: وَفِى عَادٍ — and in ʿĀd too 43: وَفِى ثَمُودَ — and in Thamūd too 46: وَقَوْمَ نُوحٍ — and the people of Noah (the pattern changes here)

The first three are on the same pattern, the fourth is not. This will be taken up below.

And that the two lists share the same pattern says something: in the twentieth verse there were signs in the earth and in yourselves; here there are signs in Moses, in ʿĀd, in Thamūd. Because the pattern is the same, the object is counted the same too.

The text, that is, puts historical events in the same category as events in nature: both are signs.

I record this as an observation about the structure; the identity of pattern between the two lists is plain in the text.

And the thirty-seventh verse builds a bridge between the two: "We left in it a sign." The sentence of transition, that is, has already been given.

Root: س-ل-ط. Its concrete sense: to prevail, to be master, to hold power. Salaṭa — he was set over. Sulṭān — both authority and proof.

And both senses of the word are at work in the Qurʾān:

The link the lexicographers record is this: a proof too establishes a mastery — it wins in a dispute. I ascribe this explanation to the lexicographers.

And the choice here is interesting. What is given to Moses is named not "a miracle" but a sulṭān. It is spoken, that is, in Pharaoh's own language: Pharaoh holds authority, and Moses holds a sulṭān too.

I record this as an observation about the words.

And one of the most compressed expressions in the Qurʾān.

رُكْن — root ر-ك-ن: to lean, to prop oneself. Rukn — the corner of a building, its pillar, its bearing leg. From the same root comes rukūn (inclining to a side, leaning). The Qurʾān uses it: "Do not incline towards those who do wrong" (Hūd 11/113) — wa lā tarkanū ila'lladhīna ẓalamū.

And in another place the Qurʾān uses the word directly in the sense of "strength": "If only I had power against you, or could take refuge in some strong support (ruknin shadīd)" (Hūd 11/80) — the words of Lot.

The function of the particle bāʾ here is disputed:

The first two are the more widespread and both agree with the context: the fortieth verse will say "We seized him and his hosts" — the might, that is, is in the scene.

I do not impose a preference; it makes no great difference to the sense.

And this is worth recording: the verse does not say that Pharaoh refuted the proof. It says that he turned away. No answer is given; the other party is not engaged.

This looks the same way as the finding recorded in the section on al-Muddaththir for 74/18-25: there too it was shown that the verdict is given before the grounds, and the ground produced afterwards.

And the sūra's eighth verse finds an example here.

The eighth verse had said: innakum la-fī qawlin mukhtalif — "you are in a contradictory word."

And here is the contradictory word: sāḥirun aw majnūn — "a magician or a madman."

One has to see that the two charges cannot both be true at once:

A man cannot be both a master and a witless man. And the particle aw (or): the text itself records this contradiction — even Pharaoh cannot decide which of the two to say.

These charges were treated in the discussions of al-Qalam 68/2 and al-Ḥāqqa 69/41-42; I do not repeat them. In al-Qalam the root of majnūn (ج-ن-ن: to cover) was analysed and the finding made that "a majnūn is one whose word does not come from himself". In al-Ḥāqqa the charges of shāʿir and kāhin were taken up and it was recorded that human sources are being rejected.

And in the section on al-Inshirāḥ this verse was already named: in setting out the epithets ascribed to the Prophet, al-Ṭūr 52/29 and al-Dhāriyāt 51/52 were cited for sāḥir and kāhin. And the finding recorded there was this: "These are not random insults; they are the standard ways in that culture of invalidating a man's word — classifying the speaker instead of arguing with what is said."

What is to be added here is the charge's reach across time.

In the thirty-ninth verse the one who says these two words is Pharaoh. In the fifty-second it will be recorded that the same two words were said in every age:

"So it is: no messenger came to those before them but they said, 'A magician, or a madman.'" (51/52)

The same two words, in the same order, with the same particle aw. The sūra gives an example in the thirty-ninth verse, that is, and turns the example into a rule in the fifty-second.

This is one of the tightest internal circles of the sūra, and it is plain in the text.

Root: ن-ب-ذ. Its concrete sense: to throw a thing away as worthless, to fling it aside.

This root was treated in the section on al-Humaza and this verse was named there; I do not repeat it. In summary: nabadha is to throw without regard — in al-Humaza a reversal was set up between jamaʿa (he gathered) and nubidha (he was thrown).

What is to be added here is the proportion between the verb's subject and its object.

The verse does not say "We drowned them" (aghraqnā) — the Qurʾān recounts this event with that verb in other places. Here it says "We cast".

And casting is not a display of power; it is an act of devaluing. To drown a man requires a struggle; to throw a thing is to let it go from the hand.

In the thirty-ninth verse Pharaoh had acted bi-ruknihi — "relying on his strength". In the fortieth that strength becomes a thing thrown away.

I record this as an observation about the words.

يَمّ — the sea, a great body of water. That the word may have passed into Arabic from another language is discussed by the lexicographers; I do not enter that discussion. The Qurʾān uses the word regularly in the narrative of Moses (Ṭāhā 20/39, 78, 97; al-Aʿrāf 7/136; al-Qaṣaṣ 28/7, 40).

Root: ل-و-م. To blame, to reproach. Lawm — blame. Lāʾima — one who blames.

مُلِيم (an active participle of the ifʿāl form) — one who deserves blame, who has brought himself into a blameable state.

And the fineness of the pattern is here. Malūm (a passive participle) would mean "blamed". Mulīm is different: the person is himself doing something — he brings the blame upon himself.

The verse says, that is, not that Pharaoh was blamed but that he had come into a blameable state himself.

And the same root will return in the fifty-fourth verse of this sūra: fa-tawalla ʿanhum fa-mā anta bi-malūm — "So turn away from them; you are not to be blamed" (51/54).

Two patterns stand side by side in the sūra, that is:

Verse 40: Pharaoh — mulīm (one who brings blame upon himself). Verse 54: The Prophet — not malūm (not blamed).

The same root, two opposite positions. I record this as a link within the sūra; the patterns of the two words differ, and I noted that difference above.