Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 38 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:38

وَقَالَ فِرْعَوْنُ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْمَلَأُ مَا عَلِمْتُ لَكُم مِّنْ إِلَـٰهٍ غَيْرِى فَأَوْقِدْ لِى يَـٰهَـٰمَـٰنُ عَلَى ٱلطِّينِ فَٱجْعَل لِّى صَرْحًا لَّعَلِّىٓ أَطَّلِعُ إِلَىٰٓ إِلَـٰهِ مُوسَىٰ وَإِنِّى لَأَظُنُّهُۥ مِنَ ٱلْكَـٰذِبِينَ

“And Pharaoh said, "O eminent ones, I have not known you to have a god other than me. Then ignite for me, O Hāmān, [a fire] upon the clay[1103] and make for me a tower that I may look at the God of Moses. And indeed, I do think he is among the liars."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh tells his chiefs he knows of no god for them but himself, then orders clay fired for a tower to seek Musa's God.

A reflection

When 'I have not known' becomes 'there is none'

Pharaoh did not say, 'There is no god but me.' He said something quieter: mā ʿalimtu lakum min ilāhin ghayrī. I have not known of any god for you besides me.

One commentary notices how much that sentence assumes. It turns a gap in one man's knowledge into a statement about the universe. A note written on that commentary sharpens the point. That way of speaking is sound for only one knower.

When Allah says He does not know of a thing, the thing does not exist, because nothing escapes His knowledge. The Quran uses exactly this form against those who worshipped idols. 'Would you inform Allah of what He does not know in the heavens or on the earth?' (10:18).

Pharaoh borrowed that form for himself. He spoke as though his knowledge had no edges. If he had not met a thing, it was not there.

That is the ego's oldest habit, and it rarely needs a throne. A headmaster gives his leaving speech after thirty years. No child in this school was ever bullied, he says warmly; I would have known. That evening a former pupil reads the speech online. She writes to him for the first time in twenty years.

He was not lying. He had simply taken the edge of his own sight for the edge of the school.

Humility begins with a small correction of grammar. 'I have not seen it' is a statement about me. 'It is not there' is a statement about reality. Only One may move freely from the first to the second. For the rest of us, every 'I have not known' should end with a question mark, not a full stop.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.