Al-Fajr · Makki · ayah 10 of 30

Al-Fajr 89:10

وَفِرْعَوْنَ ذِى ٱلْأَوْتَادِ

“And [with] Pharaoh, owner of the stakes?[1917]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh is remembered by his pegs: the soldiers who held his rule in place, and the stakes that held his victims to the ground.

A reflection

Two kinds of pegs

A watid is a wooden peg knocked in with a mallet. A tent of hair stands only by its pegs; pull them and it falls. The Arabs used the word for anything that holds a thing firm. A land's chiefs were its pegs. A king's troops were his pegs. An old line of poetry speaks of living in the shade of a kingdom 'firm in its pegs'.

The early authorities read Pharaoh's pegs in several ways, and each is instructive. One said they were his soldiers, who held his rule in place. Others said they were the tents of his great armies, pegged wherever they camped. And many said they were literal stakes. He would drive four pegs into the ground and bind a person's hands and feet to them, to torment them.

Now set beside that a different use of the same word. Have We not made the earth a resting place, and the mountains as pegs (78:6–7)? The mountains are Allah's pegs. They hold the ground steady so that everyone can live on it: the shepherd, the farmer, the child learning to walk.

The same word, two opposite purposes. Allah's pegs steady the ground beneath everyone. Pharaoh's pegs pinned people to it.

Picture two landlords with identical buildings. One uses his rules, inspections and deposits to keep the place safe and fair for his tenants. The other uses the small print to hold his tenants in place, trapped by fees they cannot escape. Both have systems. Only one system is a mountain.

Everyone with any power builds pegs of some kind: policies, habits, rules, favours owed. The question this ayah puts is not whether you have them. It is what they do. Do they steady the people beneath you, or pin them down?

Pharaoh's pegs were his fame. The surah names him by them, and by nothing else. Our pegs will name us too.

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.