Pharaoh’s Corpse and the Statement of the Noble Qurʾān – 2

This column, “Point of View,” is devoted to the writings of various people of thought. In it, it is not necessary that the institution agree with the articles published.

A RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL STUDY OF EXEGETICAL OPINIONS

IN THE STYLE OF QUESTION AND ANSWER Question: In view of the Arabic of the Qurʾān, and in accordance with the wording of this verse and the composition of its sentence, what, in your view, is its more correct translation and purport? Answer: As has already been stated above, the Qurʾānic statement under discussion has occurred in Sūrah Yūnus (10), verse 92. At the time of Moses, approximately two thousand years before the revelation of the Qurʾān, while rejecting Pharaoh’s repentance, at the very moment of his drowning, God Most High addressed him and spoke the words; the Noble Qurʾān has transmitted that incident in this manner: “So today We shall save only your corpse, so that you may be a sign for those behind you.” In the view of this writer, this is the correct translation of this verse, the clarification of which is set forth below in the form of a few points: 1. The first point stated in the verse is: “Now We shall save only your body,” meaning: now you cannot be saved from death; however, unlike the rest of your army, We shall not allow your body to be drowned in the sea. Rather, We shall save it from being submerged and cast it out of the sea. Here it should be noted that the Qur’an has not employed any verb from which one could derive the sense of preserving Pharaoh’s corpse intact, safeguarding it, or protecting it from decay. Here, the wording pertains only to saving the body from drowning in the sea. 2. Secondly, in the words of the verse, li-takūna li-man khalfaka āyatan, the Qur’an has used a locative adverb [ism ẓarf makān], namely “khalf,” which is annexed to the second-person pronoun. It conveys the meaning of “warāʾ,” that is, “behind,” and intrinsically bears a spatial sense, as the scholars of lexicon and grammar state; and this will further be corroborated by the statements of the exegetes cited below. Wherever this word occurs in the Qur’an with annexation to any pronoun, it occurs in precisely this sense of “warāʾ,” i.e., “behind.” Accordingly, in terms of Arabic usage, its correct meaning is: “so that you may be a sign for the people who are behind you.” To extract from this word a temporal sense, and thereby derive the meaning of later generations and times, is, from the standpoint of Arabic, categorically incorrect.²

Therefore, the translators’ rendering—“so that you may be a sign for those who come after you”—is not correct: first, because the Qur’an has not here made any claim of preserving the body for the future by protecting it from decay; and second, because no temporal adverb has been used here. Hence, a locative adverb cannot be translated as a temporal adverb. This translation could only have been correct if, in this verse, the Qur’an—along with nunajjīka bi-badanika [We shall save you with your body]—had also employed wa-nubqīhi or some other synonymous verb and construction that would be explicit in meaning the protection of the body from decay and its preservation for the future; and, moreover, if instead of the locative adverb khalfaka, there had been an expression such as li-takūna li-man yaʾtī min baʿdika āyatan, just as in verse 6 of Sūrah al-Ṣaff, with respect to Jesus (PBUH), his statement is quoted: “and I am one who gives glad tidings of a messenger who will come after me, whose name will be Aḥmad”; whereas it is self-evident that the Qur’an has adopted no such expression here. 3. Thirdly, the very meaning of the final clause of the verse—namely, li-takūna li-man khalfaka āyatan, “so that you may be a sign for the people who are behind you”—has been stated with full explicitness by many exegetes, earlier and later, with due regard to spatial locativity. Some of them are presented below for the readers: Imām al-Zamakhsharī wrote in his exegesis Al-Kashshāf: “li-man warāʾaka mina al-nāsi ʿalāmah,” “for those behind you among the people, [as] a sign.”³ Imām al-Bayḍāwī writes in his exegesis Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl: “li-man warāʾaka ʿalāmah,” “for those behind you, [as] a sign.”⁴ Imām Abū al-Barakāt clarifies in Tafsīr al-Nasafī: “li-man warāʾaka mina al-nāsi ʿalāmah,” “or those behind you among the people, [as] a sign.”⁵ The exegete Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusī wrote in al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ fī al-Tafsīr: “li-man warāʾaka ʿalāmah,” “for those behind you, [as] a sign.”⁶ The exegete Abū al-Suʿūd al-ʿImādī writes in Tafsīr Abī al-Suʿūd: “li-man warāʾaka ʿalāmatan,” “for those behind you, as a sign.”⁷ Sayyid Quṭb al-Shāribī has stated in his exegesis Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān: “dhālika li-yudrika man warāʾaka mina al- jamāhīr kayfa kāna maṣīruka,” “so that the great multitude of your people behind you may also come to know well what your end was.”⁸ ʿAllāmah Ṭāhir ibn ʿĀshūr writes in his exegesis al-Taḥrīr wa-al-Tanwīr: “wa-li-man khalfaka ay man warāʾaka,” “that is, for those behind you—that is, those who come after you—[as a sign].”⁹

A distinguished scholar of the language of the Qur’an and a major specialist in the Qur’anic sciences, the Iraqi professor Dr. Fāḍil Ṣāliḥ al-Sāmirrāʾī, has also articulated this same explanation of the verse under discussion in one of his conversations, with excellent clarity.¹⁰ 4. Fourthly, among the exegetes of the Indo-Pak subcontinent, according to the present writer’s survey, Maulana Shāh Rafīʿ al-Dīn al-Dihlawī, Maulana Shāh ʿAbd al-Qādir Muḥaddith al-Dihlawī, Maulana Ashraf ʿAlī Thānvī, Maulana Shabbīr Aḥmad ʿUthmānī, and Muftī Muḥammad Shafīʿ ʿUthmānī have likewise, in their translations and exegeses, stated this very meaning in exact accordance with the Arabic of the Qur’an. Consider that all the aforementioned Qur’anic scholars, in explicating the wording of this verse, did not explain the word “khalf” by means of the word “baʿd” [after], such that the reader might err in understanding the intent of the Qur’an. Rather, with due regard to spatial locativity, they adopted the synonymous word in Arabic that could be used—namely “warāʾ,” which is fully in accordance with the Qur’anic Arabic itself. Question: The translation of this clause in the verse has now become clear, but what is the full purport and intent of the statement: “so that you may be a sign for the people who are behind you”? Answer: The meaning is that this Pharaoh, in his people, was regarded not only as a great and mighty king; rather, he himself claimed divinity and lordship for himself, and his followers likewise held this belief about him. He used to say to his courtiers: “I know of no deity for you other than myself.” Likewise, he had said to Moses (PBUH): “If you take any deity other than me, I shall surely imprison you.” Thus, the low and the high among his people— ministers and priests—could not imagine that such a “mighty god,” who had gone forth in majesty and splendor with his entire army in pursuit of Moses (PBUH) and the Israelites, would meet this end and perish in such disgrace. It is self-evident that Pharaoh’s entire nation would be waiting behind for his return and the return of the whole army. On account of their false notions, it was possible that they would fabricate interpretations and concoct stories about the death of their god: that Pharaoh cannot be destroyed; he will surely return; he can neither be overcome nor fail in his mission. Therefore, God saved his corpse from drowning and, by casting it out of the sea, caused this very nation to witness the destruction and admonitory end of their false deity in such a manner that, from the entire army, only Pharaoh’s dead body was brought out and placed before their eyes on the seashore—so that they might obtain an empirical proof that their notions about Pharaoh were false, and that they might take heed from this manifest sign of God’s punishment, and acknowledge that their deity was false and that the true deity is God alone, and that He alone is dominant; and that God’s call and His promises were true; and what the end of enmity toward His messenger ultimately is. In this way, they would be compelled— without any interpretive evasions—to admit that Pharaoh had no status beyond that of an ordinary human being. Thus, their false deity reached his end in disgrace, and the false conception of his followers regarding him was utterly shattered. The explanation of the verse under discussion is, in substance, the same as that which ʿAllāmah Ibn ʿĀshūr has also set forth in his exegesis in an excellent manner. ¹¹¹²¹³ Moreover, Imām al-Rāzī writes in his exegesis Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb under this verse that the people behind Pharaoh—who held a belief in his divinity—had not witnessed his drowning with their own eyes. Hence, upon hearing the report, they denied his destruction and thought that death could not befall a “god” like him.

Therefore, God, manifesting His perfect power, brought his body out of the sea in a sound and intact state, so that this nation might witness his destruction with their own eyes and thereby attain certainty. ¹⁴ Imām al-Rāzī has also mentioned another aspect of God’s sign in bringing Pharaoh’s body out of the sea: when God drowned Pharaoh and his entire army in the sea, He did not cast out anyone from its depths except Pharaoh’s corpse. In particular, the occurrence of this strange matter with Pharaoh’s body was itself a manifest sign and proof of God’s perfect power and of the truthfulness of the prophethood of Moses (PBUH).¹⁵ Moreover, Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Munajjid writes in explaining this verse: “Indeed, the disgraceful destruction of such a rebellious king is among those great signs of God by which the end-result of obstinacy, injustice, and defiance in the face of truth becomes entirely manifest. Accordingly, it was God’s will that He show people such a sign and thereby establish it in such a manner that no room for doubt or denial would remain for them. Thus, by God’s command, Pharaoh’s dead body was cast up upon the seashore—something witnessed by his own people and those who worshipped him themselves—so that such an end for Pharaoh might become, for all of them, a clear means of admonition and counsel.” ¹⁶

Furthermore, Shaykh Munajjid says that there is no indication in the verse that Pharaoh’s body will remain preserved until the Day of Resurrection, as some people have imagined. This is tantamount to putting into the mouth of the Qur’an something it did not say. If God had intended to keep Pharaoh’s body remaining so that his corpse might, in later times as well, continue to be a sign of admonition for all human beings, then in that case his body would have remained known to all in the world and, as an outward sign, would have been fully evident and clearly determined for all later people who continued thereafter to hear the story of his destruction—so that this sign of God might remain manifest for all, a means of taking heed, and a proof of the truthfulness of God’s promises. If this had been God’s intent, then the question arises: why has this body of Pharaoh remained entirely hidden from the eyes of the world from the time of Moses (PBUH), such that no trace of it is found anywhere in history, nor any mention of it for centuries? As for those archaeologists who have claimed the discovery of Pharaoh’s body, that is a matter of the recent past.”¹⁷ Question: In the Arabic language, just as the word “khalf” is used for spatial adverbiality, so too it is used as a noun for “those who come later and later generations,” as, for example, it is stated in the Qur’an: “fa-khalafa min baʿdihim khalfun warithū al-kitāb,” “Then after them there succeeded unworthy successors who became heirs to the Book.” Therefore, why can these meanings of the word “khalf” not be intended in the verse under discussion?¹⁸ Answer: From the standpoint of Arabic, it is entirely correct that the word “khalf,” and likewise “khalaf” as well— which is commonly used alongside “salaf”—is employed in Arabic, in both these forms, for the generation and people that come after a generation. Accordingly, Ibn Manẓūr says: “wa’l-khalf: al-qarnu yaʾtī baʿda al-qarn,” “and al-khalf is: the generation that comes after a generation.” If this later generation is righteous and upright, the word “khalaf” is used for them; and if they are wicked, the word “khalf” is used. In the Noble Qur’an, only this latter form occurs in two places. Concerning both these words, it should also be known, from the standpoint of Arabic, that, first, these words occur as declinable and fully inflected. Second, in this case their referent is only “the later generation of a people,” as is clear in the verse mentioned in the question. Third, in both these forms of the word, the meaning of spatial adverbiality can never, in the Arabic language, be intended at all. ¹⁹ Now, as for the verse under discussion—“fa’l-yawma nunajjīka bi-badanika li-takūna li-man khalfaka āyah”— then, in it, in light of the above question, several aspects merit consideration and reflection, as follows: First, that in this verse none of the declinable and fully inflected words “khalf” or “khalaf” has been used, such that the meaning of “the generation that comes after a generation” could be intended here. Second, that the word occurring in the present verse is “khalfa,” not “khalf.” And in Arabic the meaning of “a generation that comes after a generation” cannot at all be intended by this word; rather, it comes only in the meaning of spatial adverbiality. Concerning this word, it is transmitted in Lisān al-ʿArab from Ibn Sīdah: “wa- idhā kānat ẓarfan lam tazal naṣban ʿalā ḥālihā,” (when it is an adverb, it remains in the accusative state in its condition). Along with this, Ibn Sīdah has presented, as an example, a verse from Āyat al-Kursī in Sūrah al- Baqarah: “yaʿlamu mā bayna aydīhim wa-mā khalfahum,” (He knows whatever is before them and whatever is behind them).²⁰²¹ In addition to the lexicographers, the scholars of grammar also regard this noun—fixed in the accusative—as being used only for the adverb of place.²² Moreover, in the construction of annexation, as in the present verse, wherever the word “khalfa” occurs throughout the entire Noble Qur’an, it occurs only in the meaning of spatial adverbiality. For example, in Sūrah Ḥā Mīm al-Sajdah it is stated: “lā yaʾtīhi al-bāṭilu min bayni yadayhi wa-lā min khalfih,” (Falsehood cannot come to it from before it, nor from behind it).²³ Furthermore, if the preposition “min” comes before this word, it affects its inflection; however, even in that case no change occurs in its meaning of spatial adverbiality, as in the Noble Qur’an where a statement of Iblīs has been quoted: “thumma la-ātiyannahum min bayni aydīhim wa-min khalfihim wa-ʿan aymānihim wa-ʿan shamāʾilihim,” (Then I shall surely come upon them from before them and from behind them, and from their right and from their left.)²⁴ In this verse as well, observe that, despite becoming declinable due to the preceding preposition, this word cannot be taken in any sense other than that of spatial adverbiality. Third, that in the verse under discussion, the people for whom God Most High has declared Pharaoh’s body to be a sign—the referent of those people has already been mentioned by the relative pronoun “man” in the words of the verse “li-takūna li-man khalfaka āyah,” and immediately after it is the construction “khalfaka,” which clarifies the spatial positioning of those people for whom God Most High has made this sign. Accordingly, it becomes plainly clear from this that the word “khalfa” here cannot at all be taken in the meaning of “later generations,” because, first, after the occurrence of the relative pronoun “man,” since the referent of those who receive the sign has become clear, therefore no second referent can, in the language of the Qur’an, be stated in this manner immediately after it. The composition of the sentence does not accept this in any way. Thus, taking the meaning of “later generations” for the word “khalfa” in this verse is, self-evidently, not possible. These meanings could only have been taken if, hypothetically, the words of the verse had been as follows: “li-takūna li- khalafika āyah.” Second, the meaning of “later generations” also cannot be intended for the reason that here the word “khalfa” has not occurred as declinable and fully inflected and without annexation such that its meanings could be for “later generations”; rather, here it has occurred in precisely that form and construction that is specific to the meaning of spatial adverbiality. Accordingly, in the light of the above-mentioned opinions of the scholars of lexicon and grammar, and the evidences of the Noble Qur’an, its meaning can only be that of spatial adverbiality—namely: “so that the people of yours who are present behind you, you may become for them a sign of admonition.” Fourth, that the declinable noun “khalf” occurs in the Noble Qur’an in two places, with the same expression, as the subject of the verb “khalafa,” in this manner: “fa-khalafa min baʿdihim khalfun.” Whereas, in the verse under discussion, it is not the word “khalf,” but the accusative-fixed word “khalfa” that has come—and that too with annexation to the second-person pronoun of address. And this word can neither be used for those who come later, nor has any such verb occurred before it in the verse of which this word could, in any way, be the subject. Accordingly, it should be understood that the word “khalf” in the verse mentioned in the question bears no correspondence, in any respect, with the word “khalfa” in the verse under discussion such that a meaning could be extracted from it like that which we intend, for example, in the expression “salaf wa-khalaf.”²⁵ The final point to submit is that, if—hypothetically—in the verse under discussion God Most High had explicitly stated such words as: “We have made Pharaoh’s body a sign for later generations,” then in that case a weighty objection would also arise: at the time of this event of Pharaoh’s destruction, the people behind him—his own people who worshipped him—were present; for them, without doubt, his body contained the greatest means of admonition. Without including this people, why would God Most High say that He has kept this sign “for later generations”? That is, if this meaning were intended, then the explicitness of his body being a sign of admonition for Pharaoh’s own people—who had themselves seen this body with their own eyes—would also be nullified in the verse; whereas it is a historical fact that there is no proof anywhere in history that later generations ever saw Pharaoh’s body. [To be continued]