ترجمة معاني القرآن الكريم - الترجمة الإنجليزية - د. وليد بليهش العمري * - فهرس التراجم
ترجمة معاني آية: (108) سورة: الأعراف
وَنَزَعَ يَدَهُۥ فَإِذَا هِيَ بَيۡضَآءُ لِلنَّٰظِرِينَ
[1713] Pharaoh, who out of his bloated egotism claimed that he was no less than Almighty God, the Most High Lord (79: 24 and 28: 38), was dismissive at first and challenged Moses toyingly seeing Moses as nothing more than a fugitive slave or, at best, a disobedient fosterling he had brought up under his own roof. But the two Signs that Moses managed to produce with such ease, had a remarkable unsettling effect on him and drove him to the edge of hysteria as evidenced by how manically he managed the whole encounter. Once the significance of these two very potent Signs is explained, one clearly sees ample justification for Pharaoh’s erratic, out of hand behaviour.
Firstly, the staff, a humble shepherd’s staff, was thrown down only to momentarily and readily turn into a great snake, about which there is no mistake (the vigour of this creature is variably described and stressed in the Qur’an as in, for instance, here and: 20: 20, 27: 10). In ancient Egypt, the cobra snake, known as the uraeus, was used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority emblematically worn on the headdresses and crowns of ancient Egyptian deities and sovereigns. It stood for the goddess Wadjet who was often depicted as a cobra. The Pharaohs wore the uraeus on their heads either with the body of Wadjet atop the head, or as a crown encircling the head; this indicated Wadjet’s protection and reinforced the Pharaoh’s claim over the land. It was in effect the Pharaoh’s crown; a pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to his rule. The uraeus, then, was nothing more than a ‘symbolic’ sign of rightful kingship, which is nothing compared with the living, moving creature after which it was modelled; in it, we see how the image of a thing fades out in comparison to the real thing. The legitimacy and effectively the supremacy of Pharaoh was proven to be a mere charade compared to that of Moses.
The second Sign, being the white hand, was equally symbolic. The Children of Israel amounted to nothing but mere bondsmen and slaves whose will had long ago been broken and whose lives were domineered by their masters of old, the Egyptians. The sign of their servitude was the extra dark skin that they came to assume after years and years of hard, gruelling labour under a scorching, unforgiving sun. Moses (عليه السلام) himself was of a dark hue (cf. al-Bukhārī: 245 and 3207) which, in the pharaonic psyche, carried the insignia of his own people, namely, slavery. That he was so easily able to shed such a tell-tale sign and assume the most glaring symbol of nobility, whiteness of the skin, coupled with the gesture in itself, a brawny hand suddenly and decisively raised, is nothing less than an indication that he, and his people by extension, had broken the shackles of slavery and subjugation and were already revolting against Pharaoh’s authority.
That Moses asked for the release of his people was, to Pharaoh’s mind, nothing less than an outright revolution and bare-faced challenge to the throne aiming to destabilize it and depose its occupant. This surely touched a raw nerve and, thus, we find that Pharaoh and his cronies where concerned that Moses would ‘oust’ them from their land. From their perspective, the war they waged was nothing if not justified.
Firstly, the staff, a humble shepherd’s staff, was thrown down only to momentarily and readily turn into a great snake, about which there is no mistake (the vigour of this creature is variably described and stressed in the Qur’an as in, for instance, here and: 20: 20, 27: 10). In ancient Egypt, the cobra snake, known as the uraeus, was used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority emblematically worn on the headdresses and crowns of ancient Egyptian deities and sovereigns. It stood for the goddess Wadjet who was often depicted as a cobra. The Pharaohs wore the uraeus on their heads either with the body of Wadjet atop the head, or as a crown encircling the head; this indicated Wadjet’s protection and reinforced the Pharaoh’s claim over the land. It was in effect the Pharaoh’s crown; a pharaoh was recognized only by wearing the uraeus, which conveyed legitimacy to his rule. The uraeus, then, was nothing more than a ‘symbolic’ sign of rightful kingship, which is nothing compared with the living, moving creature after which it was modelled; in it, we see how the image of a thing fades out in comparison to the real thing. The legitimacy and effectively the supremacy of Pharaoh was proven to be a mere charade compared to that of Moses.
The second Sign, being the white hand, was equally symbolic. The Children of Israel amounted to nothing but mere bondsmen and slaves whose will had long ago been broken and whose lives were domineered by their masters of old, the Egyptians. The sign of their servitude was the extra dark skin that they came to assume after years and years of hard, gruelling labour under a scorching, unforgiving sun. Moses (عليه السلام) himself was of a dark hue (cf. al-Bukhārī: 245 and 3207) which, in the pharaonic psyche, carried the insignia of his own people, namely, slavery. That he was so easily able to shed such a tell-tale sign and assume the most glaring symbol of nobility, whiteness of the skin, coupled with the gesture in itself, a brawny hand suddenly and decisively raised, is nothing less than an indication that he, and his people by extension, had broken the shackles of slavery and subjugation and were already revolting against Pharaoh’s authority.
That Moses asked for the release of his people was, to Pharaoh’s mind, nothing less than an outright revolution and bare-faced challenge to the throne aiming to destabilize it and depose its occupant. This surely touched a raw nerve and, thus, we find that Pharaoh and his cronies where concerned that Moses would ‘oust’ them from their land. From their perspective, the war they waged was nothing if not justified.
التفاسير العربية:
ترجمة معاني آية: (108) سورة: الأعراف
ترجمة معاني القرآن الكريم - الترجمة الإنجليزية - د. وليد بليهش العمري - فهرس التراجم
ترجمة معاني القرآن الكريم إلى اللغة الإنجليزية - جار العمل عليها، ترجمة د. وليد بليهش العمري.