وَلَقَدْ أَخَذْنَآ ءَالَ فِرْعَوْنَ بِٱلسِّنِينَ وَنَقْصٍ مِّنَ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَذَّكَّرُونَ
Wa laqad akhadhnā āla Firʿawna bi's-sinīna wa naqṣin mina'th-thamarāti laʿallahum yadhdhakkarūn · Fa-idhā jāʾathumu'l-ḥasanatu qālū lanā hādhih, wa in tuṣibhum sayyiʾatun yaṭṭayyarū bi-Mūsā wa man maʿah, alā innamā ṭāʾiruhum ʿinda'llāhi wa lākinna aktharahum lā yaʿlamūn · Wa qālū mahmā taʾtinā bihī min āyatin li-tasḥaranā bihā fa-mā naḥnu laka bi-muʾminīn · Fa-arsalnā ʿalayhimu'ṭ-ṭūfāna wa'l-jarāda wa'l-qummala wa'ḍ-ḍafādiʿa wa'd-dama āyātin mufaṣṣalāt, fa'stakbarū wa kānū qawman mujrimīn
"We seized the people of Pharaoh with years of dearth and a shortfall of fruits — that they might take it to heart. · When good came to them they would say, 'This is ours'; and when an ill befell them they took it as an ill omen from Moses and those with him. Take note: their omen is with God; but most of them do not know. · They said: 'Whatever sign you bring us to bewitch us with, we are not going to believe in you.' · So We sent upon them the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood — signs set out one by one. But they were too great for them, and they were a guilty people."
The root ط-ي-ر: to fly, a bird. Ṭiyara is the name of the custom of drawing a good or an ill omen from the direction in which a bird flies. That is, the word names the putting of an observation in the place of a decision.
The same root was treated at 27/47 in al-Naml (iṭṭayyarnā bika wa bi-man maʿak — Thamūd, of Ṣāliḥ), where a table was drawn up; al-Aʿrāf 7/131 was named in that table. I rely on that treatment.
The verse does not say "there is no such thing as an ill omen". It takes the word and changes its place: ṭāʾir — "what flies, one's share of fortune" — is with God.
I record this as my own reading and it is not binding; its ground is the construction of the sentence: what is objected to is not the search for a cause itself, but the placing of the cause in the wrong place. And innamā (the particle of restriction) fixes the cause at a single point.
And the first half of the sentence must also be recorded, and it is an observation about human behaviour:
| What comes | What is said |
|---|---|
| Al-ḥasana (good) | Lanā hādhih — "this is ours" |
| Sayyiʾa (ill) | Yaṭṭayyarū bi-Mūsā — it is attached to someone else |
What is good is ascribed to oneself, what is ill to the other side. This is a structure that can be verified from the text, and the verse gives it as a diagnosis.
I enter a note as a connection with the social sciences, and I give it with the qualification "this is one way of looking at it" (Method): the tendency to attribute success to oneself and failure to external factors is a pattern that has been observed and named in social psychology. It is an observation that overlaps with the attitude the verse describes; the verse does not set it up as a theory, it tells it as the behaviour of a community. I give this as a possible connection, not as a proof.
The hundred and thirty-second verse is the plainest statement of closedness to be recorded in the sūra:
The sentence is a conditional pattern, and the scope of the condition is left without limit: mahmā — "whatever you bring".
I record this as an observation about word order: the refusal is given before the proof that is to come. That is, the content of the proof is placed outside discussion.
And the same attitude was treated at 41/5 in Fuṣṣilat (qulūbunā fī akinnatin … fa'mal innanā ʿāmilūn), where the addressees' declaring themselves closed was recorded. I rely on that treatment and record the difference in al-Aʿrāf: in Fuṣṣilat the closedness was stated as a condition, in al-Aʿrāf as a decision.
| Word | Root | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ٱلطُّوفَان | ط-و-ف | What encircles and goes round — the lexicographers generally say a flood; the explanation "a calamity that surrounds from every side" is also transmitted |
| ٱلْجَرَاد | ج-ر-د | Locusts — the root means "to strip a place and leave it bare" (ajrad — bare) |
| ٱلْقُمَّل | ق-م-ل | There is disagreement about it: it is explained as lice, ticks, small vermin, or grain weevils |
| ٱلضَّفَادِع | ض-ف-د-ع | Frogs |
| ٱلدَّم | د-م-ي | Blood |
What the word qummal denotes is disputed, and I do not impose a preference; it is recorded that the root is tied to the idea of "what is small and numerous".
And the root of the word jarād is worth recording: from the same root comes ajrad (hairless, bare). That is, the name of the locust comes from the scene it leaves behind. This is an observation about the language.
And the qualification the Qurʾān places on this list must be recorded: āyātin mufaṣṣalāt — "signs set out one by one".
The root ف-ص-ل was treated at the fifty-second verse; I rely on that treatment. Here the word takes the five events out of being a single catastrophe and makes them signs distinguished from one another.
I record this as an observation about word order: the verse stresses not the succession of the events but their being told apart.
And per the method I draw a limit: I build no explanation about the historical or natural causes of these five events; the Qurʾān names the events and does not describe their mechanisms. And I do not go the way of comparing them with another religious text so as to equate or to separate them (Method).
The hundred and thirty-fourth and hundred and thirty-fifth verses build a cycle, and the steps of the cycle are countable:
| Step | Verse | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 134 | Waqaʿa ʿalayhimu'r-rijz — the punishment falls |
| 2 | 134 | Udʿu lanā rabbak — mediation is asked of the messenger |
| 3 | 134 | La-in kashafta … la-nuʾminanna laka wa la-nursilanna maʿaka banī Isrāʾīl — two promises are given |
| 4 | 135 | Fa-lammā kashafnā ʿanhumu'r-rijz — it is lifted |
| 5 | 135 | Idhā hum yankuthūn — the word is broken |
The root ن-ك-ث: to untwist a twisted rope, to undo it. Nakatha'l-ḥabl — he untwisted the rope. That is, the breaking of a word is described with the picture of something woven coming undone.
This is the concrete sense of the root and is worth recording: the verse pictures a word as a binding.
And a point of word order must be recorded: idhā hum yankuthūn — the idhā of suddenness (idhā al-fujāʾiyya). In Arabic this particle states the abrupt appearance of an unlooked-for state. That is, the breaking happens not at the end of a process but the moment the punishment lifts.
And the qualification ilā ajalin hum bālighūh must be recorded: the lifting was for a term. The verse gives the lifting not as a pardon but as a respite.
The root ي-م-م: yamm, according to the lexicographers, "the sea" or "a great body of water". It is also recorded that the word passed into Arabic from another language; I claim no certainty.
And the Qurʾān uses two different words for this event: al-baḥr (at 7/138, jāwaznā bi-banī Isrāʾīla'l-baḥr) and al-yamm (7/136). Two words two verses apart, for the same water. This is a countable datum.
And the ground of the drowning is given in the verse, and it is in two parts: bi-annahum kadhdhabū bi-āyātinā wa kānū ʿanhā ghāfilīn.
The root غ-ف-ل: to remain unaware of a thing; and to leave a thing aside and take no interest in it. And the placing of the word here is worth recording: calling a lie is a stance, heedlessness a condition. The two are named together.