Verse 56
But the only response of his people was that they said, ‘Expel Lot’s family from your town. They are indeed a folk who [prefer to] remain pure!’, from [coming unto] the rears of men.
Verse 57
So We delivered him and his family, except his wife — We decreed [for] her, We made her by Our decree, to be of those who remained behind, in the chastisement.
Verse 58
Then We rained on them a rain — these were the stones of baked mud [cf. Q. 15:74] — which destroyed them. And evil indeed was, their rain, the rain of those who were warned, against chastisement.
Verse 59
Say, O Muhammad (s): ‘Praise be to God, for the destruction of the disbelievers of past communities, and peace be on His servants whom He has chosen’. Is God (read a-Allāhu, pronouncing both hamzas; or by substituting an alif for the second one; or by not pronouncing the second one but inserting an alif between the one not pronounced and the other one or without [such an insertion]) better, for those who worship Him, or the partners which they ascribe? (read [either] tushrikūna, ‘you ascribe’, or yushrikūna, ‘they ascribe’), [they being] the people of Mecca, [the partners they ascribe] to Him, in other words, are such gods better for those who worship them?
Verse 60
Or He Who created the heavens and the earth, and sends down for you water from the heaven, whereby We cause to grow (there is a shift here from third person to that of the first person [plural]) splendid gardens (hadā’iq is the plural of hadīqa, which is an enclosed garden) whose trees you could never cause to grow?, because of you do not have the ability for it. Is there a god (a-ilāhun, here and in the seven instances in which it occurs, read by pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second, inserting an alif between the two in both cases) with God?, who has helped Him in [all of] this? In other words, there is no god with Him. Nay, but they are a people who ascribe equals [to Him], who associate with God others.
Verse 61
Or He Who made the earth an abode [of stability], that does not [constantly] shake beneath [the feet of] its inhabitants, and made rivers [to flow] throughout it and set firm mountains for it, with which He fixed the earth [in place], and set an isthmus between the two seas, between the sweet one and the salty one, the one not mixing with the other. Is there a god with God? Nay, but most of them have no knowledge, of His Oneness.
Verse 62
Or He Who answers the desperate one, the anguished person suffering harm, when he calls to Him and Who removes [his] distress, from him and from others, and makes you successors in the earth (the annexation [khulafā’a l-ardi, ‘successors of the earth’] has the same meaning as fī, ‘in’ [khulafā’a fī’l-ardi, ‘successors in the earth’]), in other words, each generation succeeding the one before it. Is there a god with God? Little do you remember, [little] are you admonished ([read] mā tadhakkarūna, ‘do you remember’; or [read] yadhdhakkarūna, ‘do they remember’, where [in both cases] the tā’ has been assimilated with the dhāl; the mā is extra, [used] to make less what is already ‘little’).
Verse 63
Or He Who guides you, shows you the way to your destinations, in the darkness of the land and the sea, by the stars at night, and by [the various] landmarks during the day, and Who sends forth the winds as harbingers of His mercy, ahead of the rain. Is there a god with God? Exalted be God [high] above what, others, they associate, with Him!
Verse 64
Or He Who originates creation, in the wombs, from a sperm-drop, then brings it back again, after death, as established by the proofs for this [resurrection], even if you do not acknowledge it; and Who provides for you from the heaven, rain, and [from] the earth, vegetation. Is there a god with God? In other words, none of the things mentioned is done by anyone other than God, and there is no god with Him. Say, O Muhammad (s): ‘Produce your proof, your definitive argument, if you are truthful’, about their being a god with Me who has done any of the things mentioned.
Verse 65
They [the disbelievers] also asked him when the Hour will come to pass, and the following was revealed: Say: ‘No one in the heavens or the earth knows, be it angels or human beings, the Unseen, namely, what is hidden from them, except God, He knows it, and they are not aware, the disbelievers of Mecca, like others, when, is the time in which, they will be resurrected.
Verse 66
Nay, has their knowledge come to comprise (read adraka, similar to the [4th verbal] form akrama, ‘he was kind to’; a variant reading has iddāraka, which is actually tadāraka, with the tā’ changed into a dāl and assimilated with the [other] dāl, and a conjunctive hamza added, meaning, ‘attained’ or ‘caught up with’) the Hereafter?, such that they [have reason to] ask about the time of its coming — not so: Nay, for they are in doubt of it. Rather they are blind to it (‘amūna, ‘blind’, as in blindness of the heart; this [statement] is rhetorically more powerful than the preceding one; the origin [of the term] is ‘amiyūn, but the damma vowel is deemed too heavy for the yā’ and has been moved to the mīm, after dropping its kasra vowel).
Verse 67
And the disbelievers say, also in rejecting the [idea of] resurrection: ‘What! When we and our fathers are dust shall we indeed be brought forth [again]?, from the graves.
Verse 68
Already we and our fathers have been promised this before. [But] these are just the [legendary] fables of the ancients’ (asātīr is the plural of ustūra, meaning ‘what has been written down [mā sutira] of lies’).
Verse 69
Say: ‘Travel in the land and see how was the sequel for the criminals’, because of their denials — and this [sequel] is that they were destroyed with punishment.
Verse 70
And do not grieve for them, and do not be distressed by their schemes — this is meant to comfort the Prophet (s), in other words, do not be concerned with their plotting against you, for We will grant you victory over them.
Verse 71
And they say, ‘When will this promise, of chastisement, be, if you are truthful?’, regarding it.
Verse 72
Say: ‘It may be that part of what you seek to hasten on is close behind you’ — so they were slain at Badr and the remaining chastisement will come to them after death.
Verse 73
And surely your Lord is bountiful to mankind, an example of which is His deferring chastisement for the disbelievers, but most of them are not thankful — disbelievers are not grateful for the deferring of chastisement since they reject [the fact] that it will ever come to pass.
Verse 74
And surely your Lord knows what their hearts conceal, [what these] hide, and what they proclaim, by their tongues.
Verse 75
And there is not a thing hidden in the heaven and the earth (the hā’ [tā’ marbūta] of ghā’ibatun is hyperbole, in other words, anything that is completely hidden from people) but it is in a manifest Book, namely, [in] the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz) and in God’s concealed knowledge, an example of which is the [time of the] chastising of the disbelievers.
Verse 76
Truly this Qur’ān recounts to the Children of Israel — those living at the time of our Prophet — [the means to resolve] most of that concerning which they differ, that is, by virtue of the fact that it expounds the said [differences] as they should be, eliminating any disagreements between them, if only they were to implement it and submit [to its prescriptions].
Verse 77
And truly it is a guidance, from error, and a mercy for believers, from chastisement.
Verse 78
Surely your Lord will decide between them, as [He will] with others on the Day of Resurrection, of His judgement, that is, His justice. And He is the Mighty, the Victor, the Knower, of what He judges, so that none will be able to oppose Him in the way that the disbelievers have opposed His prophets in this world.
Verse 79
So rely on God, trust in Him, for you are indeed upon the manifest truth, [upon] the manifest religion: the sequel shall be in your favour, with victory over the disbelievers. God then draws comparisons between them and the dead, the deaf and the blind, saying:
Verse 80
Indeed you cannot make the dead hear, nor can you make the deaf hear the call when (al-du‘ā’a idhā, read by pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second one, eliding it with the yā’) they have turned their backs [upon you];
Verse 81
nor can you lead the blind out of their error. You can only make those hear — hear so as to comprehend and accept — who believe in Our signs — the Qur’ān — and have therefore submitted, [are therefore] sincere in their affirmation of God’s Oneness.
Verse 82
And when the word [of judgement] falls upon them, [when] they deserve that chastisement befalls them as well as all [other] disbelievers, We shall bring forth for them a beast from the earth which shall speak to them [saying], that is, which shall speak in Arabic to those who are alive at the time when it appears, among its other statements, it will say to them on Our behalf: ‘Indeed mankind (read tukallimuhum inna’l-nāsa; a variant has tukallimuhum bi-anna’l-nāsa, ‘to tell them that mankind’) had no faith in Our signs’, in other words, they did not believe in the Qur’ān and what it comprises [of the mention] of resurrection, reckoning and requital. With its [the beast’s] appearance the enjoining of decency and forbidding of indecency will cease, and thereafter no disbeliever will believe — just as God revealed to Noah [when He said to him]: None of your people will believe except he who has already believed [Q. 11:36].
Verse 83
And, mention, the day when We shall gather from every community a group of those who denied Our signs, namely, their leaders, the ones [whom they] followed, and they will be set in array, assembled, with the last of them brought together with the first and then led away,
Verse 84
until, when they arrive, at the site of the Reckoning, He, exalted be He, shall say, to them: ‘Did you deny, My prophets, by [denying], My signs without comprehending them, from the perspective of your denial, in knowledge, or what (ammā: the interrogative mā has been assimilated with am, ‘or’) was it (dhā is a relative pronoun, in other words [it is in fact] mā alladhī) that you did?, with the commands given to you.
Verse 85
And the word [of judgement] shall fall, the chastisement will be due, upon them because of the evil they committed, that is, [because of] what they associated [with God], and they will not speak, since they will have no [valid] argument.
Verse 86
Do they not see that We made, We created, the night that they, like others, may rest in it, and the day for sight?, meaning, [for people] to see in it, so that they may go about their business therein. Surely in that there are signs, indications of His power, exalted be He, for a people who believe — they [the believers] are singled out for mention because they benefit from such [signs] in their faith, in contrast to the disbelievers.
Verse 87
And the day when the Trumpet will be blown, the Horn [will be blown], the First Blast, by [the archangel] Isrāfīl, and whoever is in the heavens and the earth will be terrified, that is, a fright that brings about death — as is stated in another verse, and whoever is in the heavens and whoever is in the earth will swoon [Q. 39:68] (the past tense [fazi‘a] is used to express the fact that such [events] will have occurred); except whom God will, namely, Gabriel, Michael, Isrāfīl and the Angel of Death. According to Ibn ‘Abbās, however, these [excepted individuals] are the martyrs who are [described as], living with their Lord, provided for [by Him]’ [Q. 3:169]. And all (kullun: the nunation compensates for the [missing] genitive annexation), in other words, and every one of them, after being brought back to life on the Day of Resurrection, will come to Him (read in the form of the verb [atawhu] or the active participle [ātūhu]) in [utter] humility, humbled (the past tense, atawhu, is used to express the fact that this will have happened).
Verse 88
And you see the mountains, you notice them, at the moment of the Blast, supposing them to be still, stationary in their place, because of their tremendous size, while they drift like passing clouds, [like the drifting of the] rain when it is blown around by the wind, in other words, they [the mountains] will be drifting in like manner until they [eventually] fall to the ground, whereby they are flattened before becoming like [tufts of] ‘wool’ [cf. Q. 101:5] and then ‘scattered dust’ [cf. Q. 56:6]. God’s handiwork (sun‘a, a verbal noun emphasising the import of the preceding sentence, and which has been annexed [in a genitive construction] to its agent [Allāhi, ‘God’] after the omission of its operator) Who has perfected everything, that He has made. Truly He is aware of what you do (taf‘alūna; or [read] yaf‘alūna, ‘[what] they do’), namely, His enemies, [what they do] in the way of disobedience, and His friends, in the way of obedience.
Verse 89
Whoever brings a good deed, namely, [the profession of] ‘there is no god but God’, on the Day of Resurrection, shall have good, [shall have] a reward, for it, because of it (this [khayrun] is not the comparative [‘better’], since there is no deed better [than a good deed]). In another verse [it is stated that] he shall have tenfold the like of it [Q. 6:160]; and they, namely, those who bring such [good deeds], shall be secure from the terror of that day (min faza‘i yawmi’idhin, if read as a genitive annexation; or min faza‘in yawma’idhin, ‘from terror on that day’).
Verse 90
And whoever brings an evil deed, namely, the ascribing of partners [to God], their faces shall be thrust into the Fire, having been oriented towards it — ‘faces’ are specifically mentioned here because of all the sensory organs it is where [a person’s] dignity resides, and so other parts [of the body] are more deserving [of punishment]. It shall be said to them in reproach: ‘Are you requited except, the requital, for what you used to do?’, in the way of idolatry and acts of disobedience.
Verse 91
Say to them: I have been commanded only to worship the Lord of this land, namely, Mecca, which He has made inviolable, which He has made a secure Sanctuary, one in which no human blood may be shed, no person may be wronged, none of its prey may be hunted and [a sanctuary] which is never deserted. Such were the graces bestowed [by God] upon its inhabitants, the [tribe of] Quraysh, [graces] whereby God has spared their land the suffering and civil strife common to all the [other] lands of the Arabs; and to Whom, exalted be He, all things belong, for He is their Lord, Creator and Possessor. And I have been commanded to be of those who submit, to God, by affirming His Oneness;
Verse 92
and to recite the Qur’ān, to you as a call to faith. So whoever is guided, to it, is guided only for his own sake, since the reward for his being guided will be his; and whoever goes astray, from faith and errs from the path of guidance, say, to him: ‘I am just one of the warners’, the threateners, and therefore my duty is only to deliver [the Message] — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [against the disbelievers].
Verse 93
And say: ‘Praise be to God. He will show you His signs and you will recognise them. Thus on the day of Badr God showed them how it was to be killed, to be taken prisoner and to be beaten by the angels on their faces and backs; and God hastened on for them the [punishment of the] Fire. And your Lord is not oblivious of what they do’ (ya‘malūna; or [read] ta‘malūna, ‘[what] you do’) but grants them respite until their [appointed] time [of requital].
Verse 1
Tā sīn mīm: God knows best what He means by these [letters].
Verse 2
Those, namely, these signs, are the signs of the Manifest Book (the genitive annexation conveys the [partitive] sense of min, ‘of’ [‘verses from the Manifest Book’]), [the Manifest Book] which reveals truth from falsehood.
Verse 3
We will recount, narrate, to you [something] of the tale of Moses and Pharaoh truthfully, for a people who believe, for their sake, since they are the ones to benefit from such [an account].
Verse 4
Truly Pharaoh had exalted himself in the land, the land of Egypt, and reduced its people into sects, groups, to serve him, oppressing a group of them, namely, the Children of Israel, slaughtering their sons, the new-born, and sparing their women, keeping them alive — for some of the [Egyptian] priests had told him, ‘A new-born of the Children of Israel shall bring about the end of your kingdom’. Indeed he was of those who cause corruption, through [the use of] slaughter and otherwise.
Verse 5
And We desired to show favour to those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them exemplars (read a’immatan, pronouncing both hamzas, or by replacing the second one with a yā’) whose good example would be followed, and to make them the inheritors, of Pharaoh’s kingdom;
Verse 6
and to establish them in the land, the land of Egypt and Syria, and to show Pharaoh and Hāmān and their hosts (a variant reading has wa-yarā Fir‘awnu wa-Hāmānu wa-junūduhumā, ‘so that Pharaoh and Hāmān and their hosts might see’, with all three [nouns] in the nominative) from them that of which they were apprehensive, [that which] they feared of the new-born [Israelite] who would bring about the end of their kingdom.
Verse 7
And We revealed, by inspiration or in a dream, to the mother of Moses — who was the said new-born; his sister was the only other person aware of his birth — ‘Suckle him, then, when you fear for him, cast him into the waters, namely, the Nile, and do not fear, that he should drown, or grieve, for being separated from him, for We will restore him to you and make him one of the messengers’. She suckled him for three months during which he never cried. She then began to fear for him and so she placed him in a basket coated with pitch and made as a cradle for him on the inside. She then closed it and cast it into the waters of the Nile at night.
Verse 8
Then Pharaoh’s folk, aids, picked him up, with him [still] in the basket, the morning following that night — it was placed him in front of him [Pharaoh] and then opened and Moses was brought out of it, sucking milk from his thumb — to be, at the end of the affair, an enemy, slaying their menfolk, and a [cause of] grief to them, enslaving their womenfolk (a variant reading [for hazanan] is huznan, both of which are alternative forms of the verbal noun, and it functions as an active participle, derived from hazanahu, which is like ahzanahu, ‘he caused him grief’). Truly Pharaoh and, his minister, Hāmān, and their hosts were sinners, that is, disobedient, and so they were punished at his [Moses’s] hands.
Verse 9
And Pharaoh’s wife said, after he and his aids had resolved to slay him: he is, ‘A joyous sight for me and you. Do not slay him. Perhaps he will be of benefit to us, or we will adopt him as a son’, and so they obeyed her [wish]. And they were not aware, of the sequel to their affair with him.
Verse 10
And the heart of Moses’s mother, when she found out that they had picked him up, became empty, of everything other than him. Indeed (in, softened from the hardened form, its subject omitted, in other words [understand it as] innaha) she was about to expose him, that is, as being her son, had We not fortified her heart, with patience, that is, We made it at peace, that she might be of the believers, [of] those who have faith in God’s promise (the response to [the conditional] lawlā, ‘had … not’, is given by the preceding [statement]).
Verse 11
And she said to his sister, Mary, ‘Follow him’, in other words, follow where he goes in order to find out his news. So she watched him from afar, from a distance, secretly, while they were not aware, that she was his sister, or that she was [even] watching him.
Verse 12
And We had forbidden him to [take to the breasts of] fostermothers from before, that is to say, we prevented him from taking to the breasts of any suckling mother other than his own mother. Therefore he would not accept the breasts of any of the foster-mothers brought for him. So she, his sister, said, ‘Shall I show you a household — having seen their affection for him — who will take care of him for you, by having him suckled and so on, and who will act in good faith towards him?’ (the [suffixed] pronoun in lahu has been interpreted as referring to the king, as a response to them [when they asked Mary how she could be sure]). Her suggestion was accepted. So she brought his mother and he took to her breast. She explained to them that he had taken to her [breast] because of her pleasant scent and the wholesome taste of her milk. Permission was given to her to breast-feed him in her own house and so she returned with him, just as God, exalted be He, says:
Verse 13
Thus We restored him to his mother so that her eyes might delight, in seeing him [again], and not grieve, thereat, and that she might know that God’s promise, to restore him to her, is true; but most of them, that is, the people, do not know, about this promise, or of the fact that this was his sister and the other was his mother. He [Moses] remained with her until he was weaned during which time she was paid wages at one dinar per day. She took this because it was money from enemy territory (harbī). She then brought him [back] to Pharaoh in whose household he was raised, as God recounts of him in sūrat al-Shu‘arā’ [Q. 26:18], Did we not rear you among us as a child, and did you not stay with us for years of your life?
Verse 14
And when he came of age, namely, at 30 or 33, and [then] was [fully] mature, that is, when he reached the age of 40, We gave him judgement, wisdom, and knowledge, comprehension of religious matters before he was sent as a prophet. And so, just as We rewarded him, do We reward those are virtuous, to their own souls.
Verse 15
And he, Moses, entered the city, Pharaoh’s city, Memphis, having been absent from it for a while, at a time when its people were oblivious, the time of the afternoon nap, and found therein two men fighting, one of his own faction, namely, an Israelite, and the other of his enemies, in other words, an Egyptian, who was exploiting an Israelite to carry firewood to Pharaoh’s kitchen. So the one who was of his faction called to him for help against the one who was of his enemies, and so Moses said to him, ‘Leave him be!’, and it is said that he replied to Moses [thus]: ‘I am truly considering making you carry this [firewood]!’. So Moses punched him, that is, he hit him with his fist clenched — he [Moses] was a strong man with a powerful strike, and did away with him, that is, he killed him, but he had not intended to kill him. He buried him in the sand. He said, ‘This, killing of him, is of Satan’s doing, inciting my anger. Indeed he is an enemy, to the son of Adam, a manifest misleader’, of him.
Verse 16
He said, remorsefully, ‘My Lord, I have indeed wronged myself, by killing him, so forgive me!’ So He forgave him. Truly He is the Forgiving, the Merciful, that is to say, the One Who has always possessed, and will always possess, these two attributes.
Verse 17
He said, ‘My Lord, forasmuch as You have been gracious to me, with forgiveness, protect me [so], I will never be a partisan, a supporter, of the criminals’, the disbelievers henceforth, if you were to protect me.
Verse 18
In the morning he was in the city, fearful, vigilant, waiting to see what would happen to him [in reaction] from the side of the slain man; — when behold, the one who had sought his help the day before cried out to him for help [again], asking for his help against another Egyptian. Moses said to him, ‘Clearly you are a trouble-maker!’, whose trouble-making is evident, judging by what you did yesterday and today.
Verse 19
But when (fa-lammā an: an is extra) he was about to strike the man who was an enemy to both of them, to Moses and the one seeking his help, he, the one seeking help, supposing that Moses was about to strike him, because of what he [Moses] had said to him, said: ‘O Moses, do you want to slay me just as you slew a soul yesterday? You merely want to be a tyrant in the land, and you do not want to be of the reformers’. The Egyptian heard this and realised that the slayer had been Moses. Thus he hurried off to Pharaoh to inform him of this. Pharaoh then ordered slaughterers to slay Moses, and they set off in his direction.
Verse 20
And a man, who was the [only] believer among Pharaoh’s kinsfolk, came from the outskirts of the city, hastening, walking fast, via a route quicker than theirs. He said, ‘O Moses, lo! the council, of Pharaoh’s folk, are conspiring, discussing [the means], to slay you. So leave, the city. Truly I am speaking to you in good faith’, in bidding you to leave.
Verse 21
So he departed from it, fearful, vigilant, lest any of the pursuers catch up with him, or [in the hope] that God might rescue him. He said, ‘My Lord, deliver me from the evildoing people’, Pharaoh’s people.
Verse 22
And when he turned his face towards Midian, in the direction thereof — and this [Midian] was the town of [the prophet] Shu‘ayb, eight day’s journeying from Egypt, [so] named after Midian son of Abraham; he [Moses] did not know the route to it — he said, ‘Perhaps my Lord will show me the right way’, that is to say, which route to follow, in other words, the simplest route to it. God thus sent forth to him an angel with a goat, which he [Moses] set off following towards it [the town].
Verse 23
And when he arrived at the Water of Midian, [the name of] a well therein, he found a group of people there watering, their flocks, and he found, besides them, two women holding back their flock, from the water. He, Moses, said, to the two: ‘What is your business?’, that is, ‘What is the matter with you, that you are not watering?’ They said, ‘We do not water [our flock] until the shepherds have moved on (ri‘ā’u, ‘shepherds’, the plural of rā‘in) that is to say, until they have returned from the watering, for fear of being crushed [by the throng], after which we go to water (a variant reading [for yasdiru, ‘move on’] is the 4th form [subjunctive] yusdira, ‘to drive away’, meaning, until they [the shepherds] have driven their flocks away from the water’) and our father is a very old man’, unable to [come and] water.
Verse 24
So he watered [their flock] for them, from another well nearby, by lifting a rock from on top of it, which only ten men could have lifted; then he retreated to the shade, of an acacia tree (samura), because of the extreme heat of the sun and he was hungry, and said, ‘My Lord, indeed I am in utter need of whatever good, [whatever] food, You send down to me’. The two women returned to their father quicker than usual and so he asked them why [it was so]. They told him about the man who had watered [their flock] for them. So he said to one of them, ‘Summon him to [come to] me’.
Verse 25
God, exalted be He, says: Then one of the two women came to him, walking bashfully — in other words, covering her face with the sleeve of her shirt, being shy of him — and said, ‘My father invites you, that he may pay you a wage for watering [our flock] for us’. He accepted her invitation, while inwardly he disapproved of accepting any wage, for it was as though she sought to remunerate him and as though he were of those who would want it [which he was not]. She walked in front of him but when the wind began to blow off her dress and reveal her legs, he said to her, ‘Walk behind me and show me the way’, which she did. Finally he came to her father, Shu‘ayb, peace be upon him, who was sitting with some supper in front of him. He said to him, ‘Sit and have some supper’. He [Moses] said, ‘I hope that this is not [some sort of] compensation for having watered [their flock] for them? For we are People of a House and do not demand compensation for good deeds’. He [Shu‘ayb] said, ‘No. It is [simply] a custom of mine and of my forefathers to be hospitable to guests and to offer them food’. Thus, he [Moses] ate and informed him of his predicament. God, exalted be He, says: So when he came to him and recounted to him the story (al-qasas is a verbal noun with the sense of al-maqsūs, ‘that which is recounted’), of his slaying of the Egyptian and their intention to slay him and his fear of Pharaoh, he [their father] said, ‘Do not be afraid. You have escaped from the evildoing people’, as Pharaoh had no authority over Midian.
Verse 26
One of the two women, the one that had been sent [by her father], either the elder or the younger, said, ‘O my father, hire him, employ him in return for a wage, that he may tend our flock instead of us. Surely the best [man] you can hire is the strong, the trustworthy man’, in other words, hire him on account of his strength and trustworthiness. He [Shu‘ayb] asked her about him and she told him, as mentioned above, how he had lifted the rock off the well and that he had said to her, ‘Walk behind me’, in addition to his lowering his head when he realised that she was coming towards him, refusing to lift it [until she left]. He [Shu‘ayb] therefore was keen to have him marry [one of his daughters].
Verse 27
He said, ‘I desire to marry you to one of these two daughters of mine, either the elder or the younger one, on condition that you hire yourself to me, that you are employed by me to tend my flock, for eight years. And if you complete ten, that is, the tending of ten years, that, completion, shall be of your own accord. I do not want to be hard on you, by making it [the marriage] conditional on ten [years service]. God willing — [expressed] to seek [God’s] blessing — you shall find me to be one of the righteous’, of those who fulfil their covenants.
Verse 28
He, Moses, said, ‘That, which you have said, is [settled then] between me and you. Whichever of the two terms, the eight or the ten (the mā [in ayyamā, ‘whichever of the two’] is extra), in other words, the tending thereof, I complete, there shall be no injustice [done] to me, by demanding [of me] to do more [tending]. And God is Guardian, Keeper or Witness, over what we, you and I, say’. The contract was agreed in this way. Shu‘ayb bid his daughter to give Moses a staff with which to beat off predatory beasts from his sheep — the staffs of the prophets were in his keeping. It was Adam’s staff, made from the myrtle of Paradise, that fell into her hands and so Moses took it, with Shu‘ayb’s knowledge.
Verse 29
So when Moses had completed the term, of his tending — of eight years, or of ten years, which is what is generally assumed — and was travelling with his family, his wife, with the permission of her father, in the direction of Egypt, he saw in the distance on the side of the Mount [Tūr] a fire (al-Tūr is the name of a mountain). He said to his family, ‘Wait, here; I see a fire in the distance. Maybe I will bring you from it news, about [how to rejoin] the route [to Egypt] — for he had strayed from it [along the way] — or a brand (read with any of the three vowels [jadhwa, jidhwa, or judhwa], which [either] means ‘a bundle’, or ‘a flame’) from the fire, that you may warm yourselves’ (tastalūna: the tā’ replaces the tā’ of the [8th verbal paradigm] ifta‘ala of the verb saliya, or salaya).
Verse 30
And when he reached it, a call came from the right bank, [the right] side, of the valley, to Moses, at the blessed spot, [blessed] for Moses, because of his hearing God’s speech therein, from the tree (mina’l-shajarati substitutes for min shāti’i, ‘from the [right] bank’, and the preposition [min, ‘from’] has been repeated because it [the tree] grows there) — the tree was a jujube, a bramble, or a boxthorn — [saying] that (an here is explicative, and not in its softened form) ‘O Moses! Indeed I am God, the Lord of the Worlds’.
Verse 31
And: ‘Throw down your staff’, and he threw it down. And when he saw it quivering, moving, as if it were a serpent (jānn: is a small snake [so called] because of the speed of its movement) he turned his back, to flee from it, and did not look back, in other words, he did not return, and so there called out [the voice]: ‘O Moses! Come forward, and do not be afraid. Indeed you are safe.
Verse 32
Insert your, right, hand, meaning, the palm, into your bosom (jayb is the neck [area] of the shirt) and [then] take it out, and it will emerge, not in its usual skin colour [but], white, without any blemish, any [vestige of] leprosy. So he inserted it and took it out and it shone as bright as the sun, blinding the eyes; and draw your arm [back] to your side [as a precaution] against fear (read rahab, rahb or ruhb), in other words, [against] the fear produced by the glow of the hand, so that you insert it [back] into your bosom and it is restored to its former state; it [the arm] is referred to as jināh, ‘wing’, because they are for humans what wings are for birds. These then (read fa-dhānika or fa-dhānnika) namely, the staff and the hand (both of which [‘asā and yad] are feminine nouns, but the demonstrative pronoun [dhānika] used for them, being the subject, is in the masculine because its predicate is masculine) shall be two proofs, to be sent, from your Lord to Pharaoh and his council; for surely they are an immoral people’.
Verse 33
He said, ‘My Lord, I have indeed slain a soul among them — the mentioned Egyptian — and so I fear that they will slay me, because of him.
Verse 34
And my brother Aaron is more eloquent, more intelligible, than me in speech. So send him with me as a helper, as an aid (a variant reading [for rid’an, ‘helper’] is ridan) to confirm me (read [either] in apocopated form, yusadiqnī, as a response to the request, or [as an indicative] with damma inflection, yusadiqunī, as an adjectival qualification of rid’an, ‘helper’), for I truly fear that they will deny me’.
Verse 35
He said, ‘We will strengthen your arm, We will make you strong, by means of your brother, and We will give authority, victory, so that they will not be able to touch [either of] you, with any evil; go both of you, with Our signs the two of you, and those who follow you [two], will be the victors’, over them.
Verse 36
But when Moses brought them Our clear signs (bayyinātin, a circumstantial qualifier) they said, ‘This is nothing but concocted, invented, sorcery. And we never heard of such [a thing], to have [ever] existed, in, the days of, our forefathers’.
Verse 37
And Moses said, (wa-qāla, or qāla, without the ‘and’) ‘My Lord knows best who brings guidance from Him (the suffixed pronoun [in ‘indihi] refers to the Lord) and whose (man here is a supplement to the previous man) will be (read takūna or yakūna) the sequel of the [Blissful] Abode, that is to say, the praiseworthy sequel in the Abode of the Hereafter, in other words, it is I [Moses], in both cases, and I speak truthfully in what I have brought [you]. Truly the evildoers, the disbelievers, will not be successful’.
Verse 38
And Pharaoh said, ‘O [members of the] council, I do not know of any god for you other than me. So kindle for me, O Hāmān, [a fire] over the clay, and bake for me bricks [of clay], and make me a tower, a lofty palace, that I may take a look at the god of Moses, to observe him and inspect him; for truly I consider him to be a liar’, in his claim of [the existence of] some other god and that he is his messenger.
Verse 39
And he and his hosts acted arrogantly in the land, the land of Egypt, without right, and thought they would not return to Us (read active yarji‘ūna, or passive yurja‘ūna, ‘they would [not] be brought back’).
Verse 40
So We seized him and his hosts, and flung them into the waters, the sea, and they drowned. So behold how was the sequel for the evildoers, when they ended up being destroyed.
Verse 41
And We made them, in this world, leaders (read a-imma, pronouncing both hamzas, or by changing the second one into a yā’), chieftains of idolatry, who invite to the Fire, by inviting to idolatry, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped, by having the chastisement averted from them.
Verse 42
And We made a curse, ignominy, pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the spurned, those banished [from God’s mercy].
Verse 43
And verily We gave Moses the Scripture, the Torah, after We had destroyed the former generations, the people of Noah, ‘Ād, Thamūd and others, [containing] eye-openers for mankind (basā’ira, is a circumstantial qualifier referring to al-kitāb, ‘the Scripture’, the plural of basīra, which is the [perceptive] light of the heart), in other words, illumination for the hearts [of mankind], and as guidance, from error, for those who implement it, and mercy, for those who believe therein, that perhaps they might remember, [that] they might be admonished by the admonitions it [the Scripture] contains.
Verse 44
And you were not, O Muhammad (s), on the western side, of the mountain, the valley, or the spot, [to the west] of Moses at the time of the communion, when We decreed, revealed, to Moses the commandment, to deliver the Message to Pharaoh and his people, nor were you among the witnesses, to this, to know it and inform of it;
Verse 45
but We brought forth generations, communities, after Moses, and life was prolonged in their case, in other words, they lived long lives and so they forgot the covenants [made with God], knowledge disappeared and revelation ceased. Then We brought you as Messenger and revealed to you the story of Moses and others. And you were not a dweller, a resident, among the people of Midian reciting to them Our revelations (tatlū ‘alayhim āyātinā, a second predicate [after thāwiyan, ‘dweller’), to know their story and inform of it; but truly We are the senders, of you [as Messenger] and [the senders] to you of the stories of former generations.
Verse 46
And you were not on the side of the Mount when We called out, to Moses to take the Scripture earnestly; but, We have sent you, as a mercy from your Lord, that you may warn a people to whom no warner came before you — these are the people of Mecca — and that perhaps they may remember, they may be admonished.
Verse 47
Otherwise, if an affliction, a punishment, should befall them because of what their own hands have sent before them, in the way of disbelief and otherwise, they might say, ‘Our Lord, why did You not send a messenger to us, that we might have followed Your signs, the ones sent with the messengers, and been of the believers?’ (the response to [the conditional particle] lawlā, ‘if’, has been omitted, and what follows it is a [new] subject; the meaning is: ‘were it not for the affliction that is the cause of their saying’, or, ‘were it not for their saying that is the cause of their affliction, We would have hastened on for them their punishment and We would not have sent you as a messenger to them’).
Verse 48
But when the truth, namely, Muhammad (s), came to them from Us, they said, ‘Why has he not been given the like of what Moses was given?’, in the way of signs, such as the glowing hand, the staff and others, or [by having] the Book revealed all at once. God, exalted be He, says: And did they not disbelieve in what was given to Moses before?; [before] when, they said, regarding him and Muhammad (s), ‘Two sorcerers (sāhirān; a variant reading has sihrān, ‘two sorceries’, namely [what they said regarding] the Qur’ān and the Torah) abetting each other.’ And they said, ‘We indeed disbelieve in both’, the two prophets and the two Scriptures [of Moses and Muhammad].
Verse 49
Say, to them: ‘Then bring some Scripture from God that is better in guidance than these two, Scriptures, that I may follow it, if you are truthful’, in what you say.
Verse 50
Then if they do not respond to you, regarding your invitation [to them] to bring a Scripture, know that they are only following their desires, in [persisting in] their disbelief. And who is more astray than he who follows his desire without any guidance from God?, in other words, there is no one more astray than such [a person]. Truly God does not guide the evildoing, the disbelieving, folk.