قَالَ رَبِّ ٱشْرَحْ لِى صَدْرِى · وَيَسِّرْ لِىٓ أَمْرِى · وَٱحْلُلْ عُقْدَةً مِّن لِّسَانِى · يَفْقَهُوا۟ قَوْلِى
"He said: 'My Lord! Open my breast for me. · Make my task easy for me. · Loosen a knot from my tongue · that they may understand my speech.'"
The root ش-ر-ح was analysed in detail at al-Inshirāḥ on 94/1, and the description recorded there is this: the concrete sense of the root is "to spread out and open flesh, to widen it by cutting it into thin slices" (sharaḥtu'l-laḥm); from this arise the senses to open and widen a thing and to open up a saying (whence sharḥ, exposition). The root ص-د-ر was treated there as well: what comes forward, the place of issuing; from the same root maṣdar. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat the root analysis.
| Ṭāhā 20/25 | al-Inshirāḥ 94/1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Mood | Imperative — ishraḥ | Question — alam nashraḥ |
| Who says it | Moses — a servant | The text — God |
| Time | Future — not yet done | Past — done |
| Function | Request | Reminder |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the table above: al-Inshirāḥ reminds one prophet of what has already been given him; Ṭāhā records another prophet's asking for the same thing. That is, the same gift stands in one place as a request and in the other as an answer.
And a second overlap recorded at al-Inshirāḥ can be carried over here: in al-Inshirāḥ, sharḥ was followed by yusr (ease) — inna maʿa'l-ʿusri yusrā. The same order is in Ṭāhā too: ishraḥ … wa yassir. Two sūras use the same two words in the same order. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.
| Order | Request | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ishraḥ lī ṣadrī | The inward — the capacity to carry |
| 2 | Wa yassir lī amrī | The work — the commission itself |
| 3 | Waḥlul ʿuqdatan min lisānī | The instrument — speech |
| 4 | Yafqahū qawlī | The result — the other side's understanding |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence: the requests widen from the inside outward, and the fourth is no longer a request but the ground of the third. Indeed yafqahū is in the jussive — that is, it is the answer to the imperative, not a separate petition.
And what is not asked for in the whole of the prayer is worth recording: Moses does not ask that the one he addresses should believe. He asks to be understood. Yafqahū qawlī — "that they may understand my speech". Not the outcome, but the soundness of the transmission.
This is on the same line as the boundary treated at al-Qaṣaṣ on 28/56 (innaka lā tahdī man aḥbabta) — where six separate expressions of that boundary from six sūras were tabulated. What Ṭāhā adds is that the boundary appears in a prophet's own prayer. I rely on that treatment.
The root ع-ق-د: to knot, to tie, to bring two ends together and draw them tight. The root was treated at al-Falaq (al-naffāthāti fi'l-ʿuqad); I rely on that treatment. From the same root come ʿaqd (a contract — the binding of two parties) and iʿtiqād (the heart's binding itself to a judgement).
A point of word order must be recorded, and it is easily missed: ʿuqdatan is indefinite and it is min lisānī — "a knot from my tongue".
That is, what is asked is not the loosening of the whole tongue. One knot is asked for — and this agrees with Moses's own words at al-Qaṣaṣ on 28/34: wa akhī Hārūnu huwa afṣaḥu minnī lisānā — "my brother Aaron (Hārūn) is more fluent of tongue than I." There too it was not an absolute incapacity but a comparison.
The root ف-ق-ه was treated at al-Fatḥ, al-Ḥashr and al-Munāfiqūn — to understand in depth, to grasp what lies under a saying. I do not repeat it here. And the choice of verb is worth recording: it does not say yasmaʿū (that they may hear); understanding itself is what is asked for.