Al-Buruj · Makki · ayah 18 of 22

Al-Buruj 85:18

فِرْعَوْنَ وَثَمُودَ

“[Those of] Pharaoh and Thamūd?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Two names stand for every age of persecution: Pharaoh with his state and army, Thamūd with their carved mountains, and neither power saved its owners.

A reflection

The magicians: a trench before the trench

Read the story of the trench beside the story of Pharaoh's magicians, and the two lock together.

In the Prophet's ﷺ telling, a crowd sees a boy die with the words 'In the name of Allah, Lord of the boy'. They cry out: we believe in the Lord of the boy. The king had wanted to end a faith, and instead a whole people believed. So he dug the trenches.

In the Quran, Pharaoh gathers his best magicians to defeat Mūsā in front of a crowd. When they see Mūsā's staff, they know it is no trick. They fall down in prostration and say: 'We believe in the Lord of Hārūn and Mūsā' (20:70). Pharaoh's reply is the king's reply in another accent. 'You believed in him before I gave you permission?' (20:71). Then comes the threat. He will cut off their hands and feet on opposite sides and crucify them on the trunks of palm trees.

The king asked his courtier: do you have a lord other than me? Pharaoh asked his magicians whether they had believed without his permission. Both could not bear a loyalty they did not own.

Listen to the magicians' answer, because it is the trench believers' answer put into words. 'We will never prefer you over the clear signs that have come to us, and over the One who created us. So decree whatever you will decree. You can only decree for this life of the world' (20:72). And then: 'Allah is better, and more lasting' (20:73).

You can only decree for this life of the world. That sentence is the whole theology of the trench. The king's power was real, and it had a boundary. It ended at death. Everything beyond that boundary belonged to Someone else.

This is one reason, perhaps, that Pharaoh is named here. His story holds the same shape as the trench, told at greater length elsewhere. Men who had served a tyrant all their lives discovered, in a single afternoon, what they would die for. When the day comes that asks you the same question, may you give their answer.

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.