7. Al-A'raaf

Those towns, which have been mentioned, We relate to you, O Muhammad (s), some of their tidings, [some of] the stories of their peoples. Verily their messengers brought them clear proofs, manifest miracles, but they would not believe, when these [signs]came to them, in what they had denied, disbelieved in, before, before these [signs] came to them; nay, they persisted in disbelief. Thus does God seal up the hearts of the disbelievers.

And We did not find in most of them, that is, people, any covenant, that is, any loyalty to a covenant from the day the pledge was made. Nay (wa-in: in is softened) We found that most of them were indeed wicked.

And Moses said, ‘O Pharaoh, I am a messenger from the Lord of the Worlds, to you, but he denied him. So he [Moses] said:

I am, one for whom it is right, [for whom] it is appropriate, to say nothing but the truth about God (a variant reading [for ‘alā] has ‘alayya, ‘for me’, in which case, haqīqun, ‘it is right’, is the subject [of the sentence], its predicate being an, ‘that’, and what follows it [sc. ‘I say nothing but the truth about God’]). Truly I have come to you with a clear proof from your Lord. So send forth with me, to Syria, the Children of Israel’: he [Pharaoh] had enslaved them.

Said he, Pharaoh, to him: ‘If you have come with a sign, as you claim, then produce it, if you are of those who speak the truth’, in this.

Then he cast down his staff and lo! it was a serpent, manifest [for all to see], an enormous snake.

And he drew forth his hand, he took it out from his bosom, and lo! it was white, radiant, for the beholders, and not its usual skin colour.

The council of Pharaoh’s folk said, ‘Surely this man is a cunning sorcerer, outstanding in the art of magic, in [sūrat] al-Shu‘arā’ [Q. 26:34], these are actually Pharaoh’s words, and so it is as if they said it in consultation with him,

who would expel you from your land. So what do you command?’