Та Ха

Tā hā: God knows best what He means by these [letters].

We have not revealed the Qur’ān to you, O Muhammad (s), that you should be miserable, that you should toil because of what you used to do after it was revealed [to you], in the way of long vigils performing night prayers; in other words, so unburden your soul;

but, We have revealed it, only to remind, therewith, him who fears, God;

a revelation (tanzīlan, a substitution, standing in place of the [conjugated] verb [derived] therefrom which renders it [tanzīlan] accusative) from Him Who created the earth and the high heavens (‘ulā, the plural of ‘ulyā, similar [in pattern] to kubrā, kubar, ‘large’);

He is, the Compassionate One presided upon the Throne (al-‘arsh, in the [classical Arabic] language denotes a king’s seat) a presiding befitting of Him;

to Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth and whatever is between them, of creatures, and whatever is beneath the soil (al-tharā, is moist earth) meaning [whatever is beneath] the seven earths, since these lie beneath it.

And should you be loud in your speech, in remembrance [of God] or supplication, then God has no need for this to be [spoken] loud, then indeed He knows the secret and [that which is] yet more hidden, than that [secret], namely, that which the soul whispers [to itself] and that which occurs to the mind but which you do not speak of [to anyone], so do not strain yourself to be loud [in your speech].

God — there is no god save Him. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names, the ninety nine [Names], cited in the hadīth (al-husnā is the feminine form of al-ahsan, ‘the best’).

Has the story of Moses — indeed, it has — come to you?

When he caught sight of a fire and said to his family, namely, to his wife, ‘Wait, here! — this was when he was leaving Midian, heading for Egypt — Indeed I see a fire [in the distance]. Perhaps I [can] bring you a brand from it, [bring you] a burning wick or a torch, or find at the fire some guidance’, that is, someone to guide me by showing me the [proper] route — for he had lost it in the darkness of the night. He [Moses] said, ‘perhaps’ (la‘alla) because he could not be certain of fulfilling his promise.

And when he reached it — it was a boxthorn — he was called [by name], ‘O Moses!

Indeed (read as innī, if one understands nūdiya, ‘he was called’, as meaning qīla, ‘it was said’; or read it as annī, because of an implied [prefixed] bā’) I am (anā, reiterates the [first person indicator] yā’ [of innī] used by the [direct] speaker) your Lord. So take off your sandals, for lo! you are in the holy, [meaning] either the pure, or the blessed, valley of Tuwā ([this is] either a substitution, or an explicative supplement; read [Tuwan] with nunation or [Tuwā] without: it is [considered] declinable on account of it being a location; but [alternatively considered] indeclinable, if taken as considered a feminine proper noun denoting a place name).

And I [Myself] have chosen you, from among [all of] your people, so listen to what is being revealed, to you from Me.

Verily I am God — there is no god except Me. So worship Me and establish prayer for to make remembrance of Me, in it.

The Hour is assuredly coming. [But] I will to keep it hidden, from mankind — and its nearness [in time] will manifest itself to them through its signs — so that every soul may be requited, thereupon, for what it strives for, of good or evil.

So do not let him bar you, distract you, from it, that is, from believing in it, who believes not in it but follows his own whim, in denying [the truth of] it, lest you perish, that is, lest you be ruined if you are barred from [remembering] it.

And what is that, that happens to be, in your right hand, O Moses?’ (the interrogative is meant as an affirmative, [but it is expressed as an interrogative] in order that the miracle [to be manifested] in it be [shown as] consequent upon it).

He said, ‘It is my staff. I lean, I support myself, upon it, when I leap [across something] or walk, and I beat down [leaves], I strike the leaves on trees, with it, so that they fall, for my sheep, which then consume them; and I have uses for it (ma’ārib, ‘uses’, is the plural of ma’ruba, with the rā’ taking any [one] of the three vowels [sc. ma’ruba, ma’raba or ma’riba] meaning ‘needs’) in other ways, such as [using it] to carry food supplies and waterskins, as well as to drive away [undesirable] animals. He [Moses] gives an extensive response to indicate his [many] needs for it.

He said, ‘Cast it down, O Moses!’

And he cast it down, and lo! it was a serpent, a giant snake, moving swiftly, moving about on its belly swiftly with the speed of a small snake — which is called al-jānn and which is [also] used to refer to this [serpent] in another verse [Q. 27:10; Q. 28:31].

He said, ‘Take [hold of] it and do not fear, it. We will restore it to its former state (sīratahā, in the accusative because the genitive-operating preposition has been removed). And so he placed his hand in its mouth and it became a staff once again; and it became clear that the place into which he put his hand was the place where it [the staff] is held, between its two prongs. Moses was shown this [miracle] lest he be terrified when it turns into a snake in the presence of Pharaoh.

And thrust your hand, the right one, meaning, the palm, into your flank — that is, your left side, below the arm into the armpit, and [then] take it out — it will emerge white, in contrast to the skin-colour that it was, without any fault, that is, [without any sign of] leprosy, radiating like the rays of the sun, blinding to the eyes [of onlookers]. [That is] yet another sign (āyatan ukhrā: this together with baydā’a, ‘white’, constitute two circumstantial qualifiers referring to the subject of [the verb] takhruj, ‘it will emerge’).

That We may show you, thereby, when you do this [as described above] in order to manifest it, of Our greatest signs, the sign that is the greatest proof of [the truth of] your Mission [from God]: and should he want it to be restored to its former state, he would thrust it into his armpit, as has been mentioned, and [then] bring it out.

Go, as a messenger [from God], to Pharaoh, and [to] those with him. He has indeed transgressed’, he has exceeded the [usual] limits in his disbelief by claiming to be a god.

He said, ‘My Lord, expand my breast for me, expand it so that it may accommodate the [weight of the Divine] Message.

And make easy, facilitate, for me my affair, that I may deliver it.

And undo the knot upon my tongue — the result of his having been burnt by a live coal which he had placed [accidentally] in his mouth as a child;

so that they may understand what I [shall] say, when I am delivering the Message.

And appoint for me a minister, an assistant for that [task], from my family,

Aaron (Hārūna, constitutes the second object), my brother (akhī, an explicative supplement).

Confirm through him my strength, my courage;

and let him share in my affair, namely, in [the delivery of] the Message (both verbs [ushdud, ‘confirm’, and ashrikhu, ‘let him share’] are in the imperative and in the apocopated imperfect tense, constituting the response to the request [of Moses]).

So that we may glorify You, [by making] glorifications, over and over again,

and remember You, [by making] remembrance, over and over again.

Indeed You are ever Seeing of us’, ever Knowing, having been gracious [to us] by way of [appointing us to deliver] the Message.

He said, ‘You have been granted your request, O Moses!, as a favour [from Us] to you.

And certainly, We have done you a favour [already] another time,

when (idh, for explanation [of that favour]) We revealed to your mother, either in [her] sleep or by way of inspiration — when she gave birth to you and feared that Pharaoh would have you slain for being one of the newborn [of the Children of Israel] — that which was revealed, regarding your affair (this [mā yūhā, ‘that which was revealed’] is substituted by [what follows, an iqdhifīhi …]),

“Cast him, place him, in the ark, then cast him, [while] in the ark, into the river, [into] the flow of the Nile, and then the river shall throw him up onto the shore, that is, its bank (the imperative here [fa’l-yulqihi, ‘let it throw him’] functions as a predicate); [there] an enemy of Mine and an enemy of his, namely, Pharaoh, shall take him”. And, after he took you, I cast upon you love from Me, that you may be loved by people; and indeed Pharaoh, and all who saw you, loved you; and that you might be reared under My eyes, be nurtured under My guardianship and My protection of you.

When (idh, for explanation) your sister, Maryam, walked up, to obtain news of you, for they had brought wet nurses [for you] but you would not take to the breast of any of them, and she then said, “Shall I show you someone who will take care of him?”. Her offer was accepted and so she brought [them] his mother and he took to her breasts. Thus We restored you to your mother that her eyes might rejoice, in seeing you again, and not grieve, at that point [anymore]. Then you slew a soul, namely, the Copt in Egypt — and you became distressed for having slain him because of [how] Pharaoh [would react]; whereupon We delivered you from [great] distress, and We tried you with various ordeals, We tested you by landing you in some other [ordeal] and [again] delivered you from it. Then you stayed for several years, ten [years], among the people of Midian, after you had reached it having left Egypt, [staying] with the prophet Shu‘ayb and marrying his daughter. Then you came [hither] as ordained, in My knowledge, with the Message [that you will deliver] — and this was when you were forty years old, O Moses!

And I chose you for Myself, to deliver the Message.

Go, you and your brother, to the people, with My, nine, signs, and do not flag, be remiss, in remembrance of Me, by uttering glorifications and otherwise.

Go the two of you to Pharaoh. Truly he has transgressed [the bounds], in claiming to be the Lord.

And speak to him gentle words, for him to renounce such [claims], that perhaps he may be mindful, be admonished, or fear’, God and so repent — the ‘hope’ [for Pharaoh’s repentance] is [expressed] from their perspective, for God knows that he was not going to repent.

The two [of them] said, ‘Our Lord, We truly fear that he may forestall us, that is, by hastening to punish us, or become tyrannical’, against us, that is, be high-handed [with us].

He said, ‘Do not fear, for I shall be with the two of you, by [providing you with] My assistance, hearing, what he says, and seeing, what he does.

So go to him and say, “Truly we are two messengers of your Lord, so let the Children of Israel go with us, to Syria, and do not [continue to] chastise them, in other words, release them from your exploitation of them in those oppressive works of yours, such as digging, construction and the lifting of heavy objects. We have verily brought you a sign, a definitive argument, from your Lord, as proof of our truthfulness in [delivering] the Message; and may peace be upon him who follows [right] guidance, that is to say, may he be secure from [God’s] chastisement.

Indeed it has been revealed to us that the chastisement shall befall him who denies, [the truth of] what we have brought, and turns away” ’, [and who] rejects it. And so they came to him and said [to him] all of what has been mentioned.

He said, ‘So who is your Lord, O Moses?’ — he [Pharaoh] restricted this [question] to him [Moses], because [between him and Aaron] he is the principal [bearer of God’s Message] and also because of his [Pharaoh’s] having pampered him while he was being reared [as a child].

He said, ‘Our Lord is He Who gave to everything, in creation, its [peculiar] nature, through which it is distinguished from another [thing], and then guided [it]’, the animal among them to its source of food, drink and procreation and in other ways.

He, Pharaoh, said, ‘So what of, the status [of], the generations, the communities, of old?’, such as the people of Noah, Hūd, Lot and Sālih, with regard to their having worshipped graven images.

Said he, Moses, ‘The knowledge thereof, that is, the knowledge of their [otherworldly] status, is, preserved, with my Lord, in a Book, namely, the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz), and He shall requite them in accordance with it on the Day of Resurrection. My Lord does not err, He is [never] absent from anything, nor does He, my Lord, forget, anything.

He is, the One Who made for you, as well as [for] all creatures, the earth a cradle, a bed, and threaded, facilitated, for you therein ways, roads, and sent down from the heaven water, rain. God, exalted be He, says, as a complement to Moses’s description of Him and as an address to the people of Mecca: and therewith We brought forth various kinds, species, of plants (shattā, ‘various’, adjectivally qualifies azwājan, ‘kinds’), in other words, [plants] of different colours, flavours and [different] in other ways (shattā is the plural of shatīt, similar [in pattern] to marīd, [plural] mardā, as [may be used] in [a phrase like] shatta al-amr, ‘the affair has become divided’).

Eat, thereof, and pasture your cattle, therein (an‘ām, ‘cattle’, is the plural of na‘am, which are camels, cows and sheep; one says ra‘atu’l-an‘āmu, ‘the cattle grazed’ or ra‘aytuhā, ‘I grazed them’; the imperative here is meant as a permissive and a reminder of [God’s] grace, the sentence being a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of [the verb] akhrajnā, ‘We brought forth’, in other words [what is meant is], ‘[We brought forth the plants] permitting you to eat thereof and to graze [your] cattle [thereon]’). In that, which is mentioned here, there are indeed signs, indeed lessons, for people of sense, possessors of intellect (al-nuhā, the plural of nuhya, similar [in pattern] to ghurfa, [plural] ghuraf. The intellect is called by this [term, nuhya] because it shows a person the sense to refrain from committing vile deeds).

From it, that is, from the earth, We created you, by creating your father Adam from it, and into it We shall restore you, [when you are] interred after death, and from it We shall bring you forth, at the Resurrection, a second time’, in the same way that We brought you forth [from it] when We initiated your creation.

And verily We showed him, that is, We made Pharaoh see, all Our signs, [all] nine, but he denied, them, and claimed that they were [the result of] sorcery, and refused, to affirm the Oneness [of God], exalted be He.

He said, ‘Have you come to us so that you may expel us from our land, Egypt, and so that kingship over it may be yours, by your sorcery, O Moses?

Yet We [too] shall produce for you a sorcery like it, [one] which will counter it. So fix a tryst between us and you, for that [purpose], [a tryst] which neither we nor you shall fail to keep, [at] a place (makānan is in the accusative because the genitive-operator preposition [fī, ‘at’] has been removed) of equal distance (read siwān or suwān), in other words, in the middle, equidistant for a person coming from either side.

Said he, Moses, ‘Your tryst shall be the Day of Adornment — a festive day of theirs on which they adorn themselves and [the public] assemble — and let the people assemble, [let] the inhabitants of Egypt gather, at forenoon’, the time for this [tryst], to observe what will transpire.

Then Pharaoh withdrew, retreated, and summoned up his guile, that is to say, those [human] elements of his guile from among the sorcerers, and then came, with them to the tryst.

Moses said to them — and there were 72 of them, each with a rope and a staff in his hand — ‘Woe to you!, meaning, may God make you liable to woe. Do not invent a lie against God, by ascribing partners to Him, lest He annihilate you (read fa-yushitakum or fa-yashatakum) by some chastisement, from Him. For verily he who invents lies, against God, fails’, [he] is the loser.

So they disputed their matter among themselves, regarding Moses and his brother, and kept secret their private counsel, that is, their conversation regarding the two,

They said, to each other, ‘These two men (hādhān, this [form] concords with the forms used by those [grammarians] who use the alif [ending] for all three cases of the dual person; Abū ‘Amr has [the variant reading] hādhayn) are indeed sorcerers who intend to expel you from your land by their sorcery, and do away with your excellent traditions (muthlā, the feminine form of amthal, meaning ‘the noblest’) in other words, [they will do away with the loyalty of] the noblemen among you, because these [latter] will prefer the two of them [Moses and Aaron] on account of their triumph.

So summon up your guile, in the way of sorcery (read fa’jma‘ū, from [the first form] jama‘a, meaning ‘he gathered’, or read fa-ajmi‘ū, from [the fourth form] ajma‘a, meaning ‘he resolved [to do something]’) and come in battle-line (saffan, a circumstantial qualifier, meaning ‘standing in rows’). For truly he who is uppermost, [he who] triumphs, this day shall be the victor!’

They said, ‘O Moses, you choose: either cast, your staff first, or we shall be the first to cast’, their staff.

He said, ‘Nay, you cast!’, and so they cast, and lo! their ropes and their staffs (‘isiyyihim: derives from ‘isūwwun, but the two wāw [letters] have been changed into two yā’ [letters], with the kasra vowelling applied to both the ‘ayn and the sād) appeared to him by [the effect of] their sorcery as though they were, snakes, gliding swiftly, on their bellies.

And Moses sensed fear within himself, that is to say, he feared that if [the effect of] their sorcery was of the same kind as his miracle, he would become suspect in people’s minds and they would not believe in him.

We said, to him, ‘Do not be afraid! Indeed you shall have the upper hand, over them by triumphing.

And cast that which is in your right hand — and this was his staff. It shall swallow up that which they have produced. For what they have produced is only a sorcerer’s trick, that is to say, a kind thereof, and the sorcerer does not succeed wherever he may go’, in his sorcery. So Moses cast his staff and it swallowed up all of that which they [had] produced.

Thereat the sorcerers cast [their heads] down prostrating, they fell down prostrating to God, exalted be He: They said, ‘We [now] believe in the Lord of Aaron and Moses’.

Said he, Pharaoh, ‘Do you profess belief (read a-āmantum pronouncing both hamzas, or with the second changed to an alif) in him before I, myself, give you permission? He is indeed your chief, your teacher, who taught you sorcery. I shall assuredly cut off your hands and feet on opposite sides (min khilāfin, a circumstantial qualifier meaning ‘alternate [hands and feet]’, in other words, the right hands and the left feet) and I shall assuredly crucify you on the trunks of palm trees. And you shall then know which of us — meaning himself and the Lord of Moses — is harsher in [inflicting] chastisement, and [which of us is] more lasting’, more enduring in [sustaining] opposition to him [Moses].

They said, ‘We will not choose you over what has come to us of clear signs, proving the truthfulness of Moses, and [over] Him Who originated us, created us (wa’lladhī fatarana, either an oath, or a supplement to [the preceding] mā, ‘what’). Decree what you will decree, that is, do what you say. What you decree is only [relevant] in the life of this world (al-hayāta’l-dunyā, is in the accusative because the scope [of his decree] is being indicated, in other words ‘[you can only decree] in it’); yet you will be requited for it in the Hereafter.

Indeed We profess belief in our Lord, that He may forgive us our sins, in the way of ascribing partners [to God] and otherwise, and the sorcery to which you forced us, to learn and to perform in order to oppose Moses. And God is better, than you in rewarding if he is obeyed, and more enduring’, than you in chastisement if he is disobeyed.

God, exalted be He, says: Truly whoever comes to his Lord a criminal, a disbeliever, like Pharaoh, for him there shall be Hell wherein he shall neither die, and thus find rest, nor live, a life of any benefit to him.

And whoever comes to Him a believer, having performed righteous deeds — the obligatory and supererogatory deeds, for such shall be the highest degrees (al-‘ulā, the plural of ‘ulyā, the feminine form of a‘lā) —

the Gardens of Eden, that is to say, as a [place of] residence (this [jannātu ‘Adnin, ‘Gardens of Eden’] is an explication thereof [of al-darajātu’l-‘ulā, ‘the highest degrees’]) underneath which rivers flow, abiding therein, and that is the reward of him who keeps pure, of sins.

And verily We revealed to Moses, [saying], ‘Lead My servants on a journey by night (read as an asri, ‘that: lead on a journey by night’, from [fourth form] asrā, ‘he travelled by night’; or read as an’isri, from [first form] sarā, ‘he travelled by night’, both being alternative forms), in other words, travel with them by night from the land of Egypt, and strike for them, make for them, by striking your staff, a dry path in the sea. So he fulfilled what he had been commanded, and God made the ground dry so that they were able to pass through it. Do not fear to be overtaken, that is, [fearing] that Pharaoh might catch you, and do not be afraid’, of drowning.

Then Pharaoh pursued them with his hosts, with him [Pharaoh] alongside them, and there engulfed them what did engulf them of the sea, and it drowned them.

And Pharaoh led his people astray, by calling them to worship him, and he did not guide them, nay he led them to destruction, in contrast to what he said [to them], and I guide you only to the path of rectitude [Q. 40:29].

O Children of Israel, truly We delivered you from your enemy, Pharaoh, by drowning him, and We made a tryst with you on the right side of the [Tūr] Mount, in order to give Moses the Torah, that it may be implemented it [by you], and We sent down to you manna and quails, namely, turunjabīn [citrus fruit] and the quail. The ones being addressed in the vocative [by ‘O Children of Israel’] are those Jews living at the time of the Prophet (s), and they are addressed with reference to the graces which God bestowed on their forefathers at the time of the prophet Moses as a preface to what God [now] says to them: