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wa-jaḥadū bihā wa-stayqanathā ʾanfusuhum ẓulman wa-ʿuluwwan fa-nẓur kayfa kāna ʿāqibatu l-mufsidīna
They impugned them, wrongfully and out of arrogance, though they were convinced in their hearts [of their veracity]. So observe how the fate of the agents of corruption was!
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah An-Naml - Verse 14
14. “And they denied them unjustly and proudly though their hearts acknowledged them; consider, then how was the end of the mischief-makers.”
There are different sorts of infidelity and denial: 1- Disbelief may be as a result of following the fathers and customs and carnal desires. Most of disbelievers are of this kind. 2- Disbelief can be because of mere ignorance and conjectures:
3- Disbelief may be hidden by hypocrisy for the one who is apparently Muslim but inwardly he is a disbeliever. 4- Disbelief may emerge out of apostasy. When a person turns back from Islam, or denies some principles of the religion, such as Hajj, prayer, Zakat, and other main ordinances of the religion, or produces an innovation in the religion, he is a disbeliever. 5- Disbelief of the denial kind can come into being for the person who heartily is assured in the legitimacy of the truth, but denies it arrogantly and because of enmity. The verse under discussion states this kind of disbelief.
So it indicates that those accusations that they brought against Moses (as) were not for the sake that they were really in doubt, but they denied the miracles unjustly and because of self-superiority. The Qur’an says:
It is understood from this sentence that Faith has a reality besides knowledge and certainly, and blasphemy may exist because of denial and negation while there is knowledge and awareness. In other words, the reality of the correct Faith is an ‘outward and inward submission’ before the truth. Thus, if a person is certain of something but he does not surrender to it inwardly or outwardly, he has not faith, but he is a disbeliever of the denial kind. This is a vast matter that now we suffice only to this short explanation here.
Imam Sadiq (as) in a tradition, explaining five kinds of disbelief, counts one of them this kind of disbelief and that one of its branches is ‘denial’, and he said:
“That is something that one denies while he knows that it is surely the truth which has been proved with him”,
then he recited this verse.21 It is interesting that the Qur’an considers the motivation of the denial of the people of Pharaoh in two things: injustice and pride. Their ‘injustice’ may refer to usurpation of others’ rights, and their pride refers to their self-superiority over the Children of Israel. It means that they saw if they surrendered to the signs and miracles of Moses, they both would find their unlawful interests in danger and that they would stand in the same row with their slaves, the Children of Israel, and none of them were tolerable for them.
Or the purpose of the Qur’anic word ‘unjustly’ is the injustice they did to themselves or to the Divine verses, and, the purpose of the word ‘proudly’ is oppression over others, as Surah Al-’A‘raf, No. 7, verse 9 says:
However, at the end of this verse, as a lesson and gazing-stock, with a short and very expressive sentence, the Qur’an points to the evil end of the people of Pharaoh that they were drowned and destructed, where it says:
The Qur’an does not uncover the matter here, because they had read the painful story of this disbelieving people in other verses of the Qur’an and by this short sentence they may understand what they must understand. By the way, from among their ugly qualities entirely, the Qur’an has emphasized on ‘making mischief’ which has a comprehensive concept. It includes both mischief in belief, speech and action, and mischief in individual and society. In fact, all their evil deeds are gathered in the word ‘mischief’.
Footnotes