Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 18 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:18

قَالَ أَلَمْ نُرَبِّكَ فِينَا وَلِيدًا وَلَبِثْتَ فِينَا مِنْ عُمُرِكَ سِنِينَ

“[Pharaoh] said, "Did we not raise you among us as a child, and you remained among us for years of your life?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Told of the Lord of the worlds, Pharaoh answers with the cradle: I reared you, you were ours, so who are you to speak?

A reflection

An echo thrown back across the room

Listen to the two sentences side by side. Musa has spoken of the rabb of the worlds. Pharaoh answers: a-lam nurabbika fīnā walīdā, did we not rear you among us as a child? The word he chooses rings with the one he has just heard.

The ear catches it first; the lexicons explain why it stings. Nurabbī comes from rabbā, to make a thing grow. Its root pictures a hill rising by itself out of the plain, and the earth swelling when rain falls on it. To rear a child is to make him rise like that. And the lexicons record the same sense beside rabb itself: rabbabtu al-ṣabiyya, 'I reared the boy'. They even name the stepfather, the man who takes charge of his wife's son, al-rābb.

So Pharaoh's reply is not small talk. In effect he says: you speak of a rabb? I am the one who raised you. Elsewhere he goes further: 'I am your lord, the most high' (79:24).

The ayah lets the two claims stand side by side, and the difference speaks for itself. One rearing lasted some years, in one house, for one boy. The other holds the worlds. Pharaoh's rearing of Musa happened inside it. The milk, the bread and the breath of the child he raised, and his own breath too, came from the Lord he was mocking.

This is the ego's oldest move. Do a little good, and take a title from it. A manager who trained a few juniors starts to talk as though he made them. A parent starts to talk as though grown children owe him their minds. Real rearing is a gift that passes through our hands. Its Owner is elsewhere.

There is a quiet lesson here for anyone who has raised, taught or trained another person. You made someone grow for a season. Remember the Rabb who made you both grow.

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.