Taha · Makki · ayah 58 of 135

Taha 20:58

فَلَنَأْتِيَنَّكَ بِسِحْرٍ مِّثْلِهِۦ فَٱجْعَلْ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكَ مَوْعِدًا لَّا نُخْلِفُهُۥ نَحْنُ وَلَآ أَنتَ مَكَانًا سُوًى

“Then we will surely bring you magic like it, so make between us and you an appointment, which we will not fail to keep and neither will you, in a place assigned."[839]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh answers a sign with a promise of a copy, and asks for a fair, level meeting ground, certain the imitation will win.

A reflection

Answering the real thing with a copy

An art authenticator dims the lights in a gallery basement and turns an ultraviolet lamp on a canvas. Under ordinary light, the painting is flawless. Under the lamp, a patch of modern varnish glows like a bruise. A copy can survive almost any test except the one designed to find it.

Pharaoh's plan is a copy. We will bring you magic like it. The word is mithl, and its root pictures a figure set up facing another, made on its pattern. Pharaoh's strategy is to place a likeness opposite Musa's sign, so the crowd sees two of the same thing.

One commentator explains why this was the natural move. A miracle is distinguished from magic precisely because it cannot be matched. Magic can. So if Pharaoh's magicians could produce the same effect, Musa's claim would collapse into a talent contest.

It was a rational plan. It was also the one test he could not survive. He chose to fight on the single ground where the difference between the real and the imitation would be undeniable.

A fair sceptic may ask why truth should be tested by spectacle at all. Is a contest of wonders a serious way to settle a question about God? The commentaries see it differently. Pharaoh chose the test; Musa accepted it. And the test was exactly the right one, because it asked the only question that mattered: can this be copied?

This is useful far beyond Egypt. Every real thing in life attracts imitations. Real sincerity, real knowledge, real love, real faith. The counterfeit usually wins at a distance and in poor light. It loses when the two are set side by side, under a lamp.

So do not fear the copy. Fear only being one. The question for your own heart is simple. If my faith were placed beside its imitation, under a lamp, which would glow?

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.