قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ أَن يُكَذِّبُونِ · وَيَضِيقُ صَدْرِى وَلَا يَنطَلِقُ لِسَانِى فَأَرْسِلْ إِلَىٰ هَٰرُونَ · وَلَهُمْ عَلَىَّ ذَنۢبٌ فَأَخَافُ أَن يَقْتُلُونِ
Qāla rabbi innī akhāfu an yukadhdhibūn · Wa yaḍīqu ṣadrī wa lā yanṭaliqu lisānī fa-arsil ilā Hārūn · Wa lahum ʿalayya dhanbun fa-akhāfu an yaqtulūn
"He said: 'My Lord! I fear that they will deny me. · My breast grows tight and my tongue does not loosen; so send to Aaron (Hārūn) as well. · Moreover they hold an offence against me; I fear that they will kill me.'"
The command was a single sentence. The answer is three verses. And the order of the three objections is worth recording:
| Order | Objection | What it belongs to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | An yukadhdhibūn — they will deny | The other side's reaction |
| 2 | Yaḍīqu ṣadrī · lā yanṭaliqu lisānī | His own condition |
| 3 | Lahum ʿalayya dhanbun · an yaqtulūn | His past and the danger to his life |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the lightest first, the heaviest last. The fear of death is named third — not first. The text therefore gives the messenger's foremost anxiety as the failure of the mission, not as his own life.
The root ض-ي-ق: narrowness. Ḍayq — to be narrow. Its opposites are saʿa (breadth) and sharḥ (to split open and widen).
| Person | Expression | Where | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moses | Wa yaḍīqu ṣadrī — my breast grows tight | Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/13 | Tightening — complaint |
| Moses | Rabbi'shraḥ lī ṣadrī — expand my breast | Ṭāhā 20/25 | Expansion — request |
| Muhammad | A-lam nashraḥ laka ṣadrak — did We not open your breast | Al-Inshirāḥ 94/1 | Expansion — already given |
| Muhammad | Wa laqad naʿlamu annaka yaḍīqu ṣadruka bimā yaqūlūn | Al-Ḥijr 15/97 | Tightening — known |
This word was analysed in al-Inshirāḥ, and the description recorded there holds here too. What is to be added here is an overlap: the Qurʾān records that the breast of both messengers grew tight; to one it says "We expanded it", the other asks "expand it".
And a link can be made with the third verse of the sūra. I record it as my own reading: at 26/3 it was said to the one addressed (Muhammad) "you are almost destroying yourself". In the thirteenth verse another messenger says "my breast grows tight". Twenty verses lie between the two, and both recount the burden the messenger carries. That this link is made is not stated in the text; the position offers an overlap.
The root ط-ل-ق: the untying of a bond, becoming free. Ṭalāq (the untying of the bond of marriage) is from the same root — it was treated in al-Ṭalāq. Inṭilāq (Form VII) — to come untied of itself, to be released.
The expression therefore does not say "I cannot speak". It says: my tongue does not loosen — it stays tied, it does not flow.
And the Qurʾān recounts the same condition in Ṭāhā with another word: wa'ḥlul ʿuqdatan min lisānī (20/27) — "untie a knot from my tongue". The two sūras use the same picture: bond and knot.
Reports are transmitted to the effect that this condition had a medical or physiological cause; the Qurʾān gives no cause. The only thing the text gives is the condition itself: the tongue does not flow. About the cause I say nothing.
And Moses' own words at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/34 confirm this: wa akhī Hārūnu huwa afṣaḥu minnī lisānā — "my brother Aaron is clearer than I in tongue". That passage was treated in al-Qaṣaṣ, and I rely on that treatment.
A point of word order worth recording. Moses does not say "send Aaron with me"; he says fa-arsil ilā Hārūn — "send to Aaron".
The object of the verb is not stated, only its direction is given. The transmitted explanations: (a) "send Gabriel to Aaron", that is, reveal to him too; (b) "give the messengership to Aaron as well". Both explanations come out at the same door: the request is not for an assistant but for a fellow messenger.
The request at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/34 is different: fa-arsilhu maʿiya ridʾan yuṣaddiqunī — "send him with me as a support, to confirm me". As was recorded in al-Qaṣaṣ, there the request is for confirmation. Two different faces of the same event are given in the two sūras: in al-Shuʿarāʾ messengership, in al-Qaṣaṣ support. I record this as an observation; it is not a contradiction but two different emphases.
This expression refers to a piece of the account that al-Shuʿarāʾ does not recount: Moses' killing of a man in Egypt with his fist.
The event was treated in detail at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/14-21, and I rely on that treatment. The notes there were, in summary, these: the act is not a deliberate killing (wakaza — to strike with the fist; fa-qaḍā ʿalayh — he finished him); Moses himself assesses the event (hādhā min ʿamali'sh-shayṭān, innī ẓalamtu nafsī); and the text does not cover it up.
| Element | What it announces |
|---|---|
| Lahum | In their favour — they are the creditor side |
| ʿAlayya | Against me — I am the debtor side |
| Dhanbun | Indefinite — an offence |
Moses therefore recounts the event not in the language of his own conscience but in the language of the other side's law: "they have a claim upon me". He does not say innī ẓalamtu nafsī (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/16); he says "in their eyes I am guilty".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two prepositions (li and ʿalā): the sentence is not a confession of sin but a statement of risk. The matter is not the weight of the offence but what the other side will do about it — and the next sentence says this plainly: fa-akhāfu an yaqtulūn.
And the word dhanb: the root ذ-ن-ب, whose concrete sense is tail (dhanab). The connection the lexicographers give: an offence is what a person drags behind him — it comes after him, it does not let go. From this picture the word widens to "a burden, an act whose consequence trails after it".
And this picture agrees with the word order of the verse: Moses left Egypt years before; the offence has come after him.
All three are real, and not one of them is denied. The answer in the fifteenth verse does not say that the objections are wrong; it announces the outcome. This will be treated in the next section.