al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:23-28

Qāla Firʿawnu wa mā rabbu'l-ʿālamīn · Qāla rabbu's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā in kuntum mūqinīn · Qāla li-man ḥawlahu alā tastamiʿūn · Qāla rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn · Qāla inna rasūlakumu'lladhī ursila ilaykum la-majnūn · Qāla rabbu'l-mashriqi wa'l-maghribi wa mā baynahumā in kuntum taʿqilūn

"Pharaoh said: 'And what is the Lord of all the worlds?' · [Moses] said: 'The Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them — if you would know for certain.' · [Pharaoh] said to those around him: 'Are you not listening?' · [Moses] said: 'Your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers.' · [Pharaoh] said: 'This messenger of yours who has been sent to you is certainly possessed.' · [Moses] said: 'The Lord of the east and the west and what is between them — if you would use reason.'"

This is one of the most tightly built dialogue scenes in the Qurʾān. Six verses, six qāla, no explanation of any kind. The narrator does not step in: who felt what, who thought what, is not said. There are only the words.

And the words set up a pattern:

The pattern is exact: Pharaoh speaks three times and all three times drops the question; Moses answers three times and all three times answers the same question.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the arrangement of the six verses: the scene shows not a debate but how a debate is broken off. Pharaoh does not refute the answer — he reacts to it.

A point of word order worth recording, and one that has been disputed: the question is asked with مَا ("what"), not with مَنْ ("who").

In Arabic mā asks after quiddity (what a thing is, its kind), man after identity. Rational beings are asked after with man.

The transmitted explanations:

And Moses' answer seems to settle this dispute. I record it as my own reading: Moses gives no quiddity. He gives an act. He does not say "it is of such a kind"; he says "He is the Lord of such and such". The question looks for a kind; the answer shows a work.

Moses answers three times, and all three are in the same mould: rabbu … wa … wa mā baynahumā. But the field they cover changes:

The shared structure of the three answers and their differences can be verified from the text. I enter three notes:

One — in the second answer there is no conditional clause. The first and the third carry a qualification ending in in kuntum…; the second does not. And the second answer is the only one that takes those addressed themselves as its subject: rabbukum wa rabbu ābāʾikumu'l-awwalīn. I record it as my own reading: a person's own existence and the existence of his forefathers are not something he needs to be persuaded of — it is already in front of him.

Two — the contents of the conditions differ: īqān (certain knowledge) and ʿaql (the use of reason). The first answer looks to the whole of the universe and sets certain knowledge as its condition; the third answer looks to east and west, that is, to an order seen by the eye every day, and sets the use of reason as its condition. The larger claim is thus tied to the heavier condition, the more visible proof to the lighter one. I record this as an observation about the structure.

Three — the answers do not narrow backwards; they descend toward the horizon. While the heavens and the earth are abstract, east and west are two points seen every morning. The higher Moses raises the argument, the more concrete he makes the proof.

And the relatives of the east-west formula in the Qurʾān must be recorded: rabbu'l-mashāriq (al-Ṣāffāt 37/5 — plural, "the easts"), rabbu'l-mashriqayni wa rabbu'l-maghribayn (al-Raḥmān 55/17 — dual). Three verses, three different numbers: singular, dual, plural. This difference was treated in this commentary in al-Ṣāffāt and al-Raḥmān, and the explanation recorded there was this: the point at which the sun rises changes every day; the singular announces "direction", the dual "the two extremes", the plural "the point of each day". I do not repeat it here.

Pharaoh gives no answer to the answer; he turns to those around him.

A point of word order: the sentence stands as a question but asks for no information. He does not suppose that they failed to hear what was said; he knows they heard it. The work of the sentence is to make the listener a witness: "look at what this man is saying".

And the verb is worth recording: tastamiʿūn — to listen. In the fifteenth verse the guarantee God gave Moses was from the same root and in the same pattern: innā maʿakum mustamiʿūn. The sūra thus uses the same verb in two different mouths:

This is an overlap that can be verified from the text. And as my own reading I record this: the guarantee given at the start of the scene comes from the same root as the verb that becomes an object of mockery in the middle of the scene. The messenger is not alone — and the sentence that tells him so uses the same word as the sentence that mocks him. That this link is intended is not stated in the text.

The root ج-ن-ن: to cover, to hide. Janna'l-layl — the night covered over. From the same root: jinn (the unseen), janna (the garden covered by trees), janīn (the covered one in the womb), junna (a shield), majnūn (one whose reason is covered over).

The root was analysed across the series (al-Jinn, al-Qalam 68/2, al-Ṭūr) and is not repeated.

Two things are to be added here.

One — the position of the accusation. The accusation comes after Moses' most reasonable answer. What he said in the twenty-sixth verse was this: "your Lord and the Lord of your forefathers". There is nothing unintelligible in it. The accusation is given not to unintelligibility but to unacceptability.

Two — the word order of the accusation. Pharaoh does not say "you are possessed". He turns to the listeners and speaks in the third person: inna rasūlakumu'lladhī ursila ilaykum — "your messenger who was sent to you".

Pharaoh thus does two things at once: he removes Moses from being the one who addresses, and he removes himself from being the one addressed. He says "he was sent not to me but to you".

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the two pronouns. And the accusation la-majnūn at the start of the sūra is the brother of the accusation of poetry at the end of the sūra: both classify the speaker instead of discussing what is said. This link will be treated in the section on 224-226.