Surah ash-Shu`ara' (The Poets ) 26 : 18

Overview (Verses 18 - 22)

Hence, Pharaoh is sarcastic, asking in an affected air of surprise: “Did we not bring you up when you were an infant? And did you not stay with us many years of your life? Yet you have done that deed of yours while being an unbeliever.” (Verses 18-19) Is this how you repay our kindness as we looked after you when you were a young child? Is it fair that you come today professing a religion other than ours, rebelling against the authority of the king who brought you up in his palace, and calling on people to abandon his worship? How come that during all those years you stayed with us you did not mention anything of the wild claims you are now making, giving us no prelude to what was to come? Pharaoh then reminds Moses of the incident leading to the killing of the Egyptian, giving it an air of exaggeration: “Yet you have done that deed of yours...” It was a ghastly deed that should never be mentioned or described in real terms. Yet you did it “while being an unbeliever.” You did not believe then in the Lord of all the worlds, about whom you are now telling us. Thus we see Pharaoh making what he thought was a final argument and against which Moses would have no reply, especially his killing of an Egyptian and the punishment that could be inflicted on him. His words are clearly meant as an implied threat. Since God answered his prayer and cured his speech impediment, Moses rejoins with a clear reply: “’I committed it while I was still going astray; and I fled from you because I feared you. Then my Lord granted me sound judgement and made me one of [His] messengers. And what sort of favour is this you are taunting me with: was it not because you had enslaved the Children of Israel?’“ (Verses 21-22) I did it when I was ignorant, rushing to defend anyone from among my people. This is different from my present commitment to my faith which is based on sound judgement granted me by my Lord. “I fled from you because I feared you.” But God has been good to me, bestowing on me the gift of wisdom and making me one of His messengers. I am not a unique phenomenon; rather, one of the chosen group of God’s messengers.

Moses then uses a touch of sarcasm in reply to Pharaoh’s own sarcastic remarks, but he only states the truth: “What sort of favour is this you are taunting me with: was it not because you had enslaved the Children of Israel?” The fact that I was reared in your palace came about only as a result of your enslavement of the Children of Israel, and your killing of their children. This was the reason why my mother put me in a basket to float along the Nile. When your people found me, I was brought up in your palace, not in my parents’ home. What favour is this that you press against me?