Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 44 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:44

فَأَلْقَوْا۟ حِبَالَهُمْ وَعِصِيَّهُمْ وَقَالُوا۟ بِعِزَّةِ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّا لَنَحْنُ ٱلْغَـٰلِبُونَ

“So they threw their ropes and their staffs and said, "By the might of Pharaoh, indeed it is we who are predominant."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The magicians threw their ropes and staffs and swore by Pharaoh's might that they had won, before the answer had even been thrown.

A reflection

Ropes, and the hunter's snare

The word for their ropes, ḥibāl, carried a sharp picture for the first hearers. From the same root comes ḥibāla: the hunter's snare. The lexicons state it plainly. A ḥābil was the man who set the snare, and an animal caught in it was maḥbūl. One lexicographer adds his own suggestion. A word for sudden disaster, he thinks, comes from the same picture: the stricken person is like game caught in the snare.

That is what these ropes were for. Another surah says the magicians bewitched the people's eyes and struck them with dread (7:116). The ropes were a snare laid for the eye, and through the eye for the heart.

But a snare only works on the unsuspecting. Picture a gamekeeper walking a field at dawn. On a rabbit run he finds a wire snare pulled tight. Caught in it, whining, is the poacher's own dog. The man who set the trap knew the run well. He forgot who else used it.

The Quran states the principle in one line. Evil scheming encircles none but its own people (35:43). The snare thrown down in front of Musa caught no one it was meant for. The crowd's eyes were cleared within the hour. The magicians themselves walked out of it into faith. The one left entangled was the man who had paid for the ropes.

Modern life is full of snares for the eye. Images built to unsettle, offers designed to trap, voices that thrill and frighten at once. Their makers are rarely as free as they look. If you are tempted to set one, even a small one, remember the dog in the wire. And if you feel caught by one, remember the morning sun on that field.

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.