قَالَ أَلَمْ نُرَبِّكَ فِينَا وَلِيدًا وَلَبِثْتَ فِينَا مِنْ عُمُرِكَ سِنِينَ · وَفَعَلْتَ فَعْلَتَكَ ٱلَّتِى فَعَلْتَ وَأَنتَ مِنَ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Qāla a-lam nurabbika fīnā walīdan wa labithta fīnā min ʿumurika sinīn · Wa faʿalta faʿlataka'llatī faʿalta wa anta mina'l-kāfirīn
"He said: 'Did we not raise you among us as a child? Did you not stay among us many years of your life? · And then you did that deed of yours which you did; you are one of the ungrateful.'"
Pharaoh does not discuss the request. He does not say a word about whether the Children of Israel will be released, about whether the messengership is true, about who God is. He turns the subject to the person.
| Move | Expression | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A-lam nurabbika fīnā walīdā | Obligation — "we looked after you" |
| 2 | Wa faʿalta faʿlataka'llatī faʿalta | A past offence — "you are a killer" |
I record this as an observation: neither is an argument; both are a positioning directed at the person. They carry the conversation from a dispute about a right to an accounting of debt and crime.
The verb is rabbā (Form II): to raise, to bring up. And the lexicographers record that this verb comes from the same semantic field as the word رَبّ (Lord): the core of the root ر-ب-ب is to bring a thing up to its completion, to own it and watch over it. The root was analysed in al-Fātiḥa.
And the point of word order stands here: Moses had said he was the messenger of rabbu'l-ʿālamīn (16). Pharaoh reminds him of his own nurture. The two words are from the same root.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sequence of the two verses: against the claim of "the Lord of all the worlds", Pharaoh puts forward his own lordship — not openly, but through a verb: "I raised you". Later in the sūra he will say it openly as well (29 — la-ini'ttakhadhta ilāhan ghayrī).
The root و-ل-د: to give birth. Walīd — newly born, a small child. The word increases the weight of the obligation: the one looked after was in no condition to defend himself.
And this refers to the scene at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/8-9: the child had reached Pharaoh's palace by water, and his wife had taken him in. That event was treated in al-Qaṣaṣ. Pharaoh names the result of the event and does not name its cause: he does not say why the child was put into the water.
A point of word order worth recording. Pharaoh does not name the event: he does not say "you killed a man". He repeats the word with a verbal noun from its own root: faʿalta faʿlata-ka'llatī faʿalta — "you did that deed of yours which you did".
| Element | Word | Its work |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | faʿalta | You did |
| Cognate accusative | faʿlata-ka | That deed of yours |
| Relative clause | allatī faʿalta | Which you did |
The same root three times. In Arabic this construction announces that the act is something known and needing no naming. The closest English rendering: "you did that deed of yours."
فَعْلَة — the faʿla pattern announces a single occurrence (in Arabic, maṣdar al-marra). That is: "that one act of yours". The same pattern was also recorded in this commentary at al-Qamar 54/36 for baṭsha (baṭshatanā — "our one seizing").
And one further observation: the vagueness of the expression increases the force of the accusation. An unnamed offence stands heavier than a named one — because, not being described, it cannot be answered.
The word means both "ungrateful" and "denier"; the core of the root ك-ف-ر is covering over, and it has been analysed across the series (al-Kāfirūn, al-Muddaththir).
The context here brings the ingratitude side forward: the sentence is the continuation of the sentence "we looked after you". What is being said is "you covered over the kindness".
But the second sense is also possible, and it is transmitted: having left the religion of Pharaoh. Both senses can be supported from the text; I do not impose a preference. What is to be recorded is this: the word comes out of the mouth of the accuser — and the sūra nowhere uses this word of Moses.