Page 386
wa-qālati mraʾatu firʿawna qurratu ʿaynin lī wa-laka lā taqtulūhu ʿasā ʾan yanfaʿanā ʾaw nattakhidhahū waladan wa-hum lā yashʿurūna
Pharaoh’s wife said [to him], ‘[This infant will be] a [source of] comfort to me and to you. Do not kill him. Maybe he will benefit us, or we will adopt him as a son.’ But they were not aware.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-Qasas - Verse 9
9. “And Pharaoh’s wife said: ‘(He will be) a joy of the eye for me and for you; do not slay him; may be he will profit us, or we may take him for a son; but they did not perceive (what they were doing).”
The women have an effective function in social affairs. (Pharaoh’s wife changed the decision of Pharaoh and neither of his dignity, sovereignty, and wealth could hinder her.) In Moses’ life, a few women had an important fundamental function. They were Moses’ mother, Moses’ sister, Pharaoh’s wife and the wife of Moses. In this verse, the function of the wife of Pharaoh in preventing him from killing Moses is stated. The verse says:
It seems that by the face of the baby and other signs, including putting him in the box and leaving him on the waves of Nile, Pharaoh had found out that this baby belonged to the Children of Israel. Suddenly the thought of raising up of a man from the Children of Israel and the destruction of his kingdom by his hand came into his mind and he wanted that his criminal law upon the new-born children of the Children of Israel should be executed for this baby, too.
The flatterers around Pharaoh also encouraged this kind of thought and said that there was no reason that the law might not be executed upon him. But ’Asiyah, Pharaoh’s wife, who had no son and her pure heart, which was not of the kind of that of the people of Pharaoh’s court, had been the center of the love of this new-born boy, stood against all of them, and since in these kinds of family debates women often win, she became victorious there, too.
And if the event of the Pharaoh’s daughter, who was cured before them, is also added to it, the triumph of ’Asiyah in this conflict will be made more clear. But, at the end of the verse, the Holy Qur’an, in a short expressive sentence, says:
Yes, they did not know that the Divine operative command and the invincible Will of Allah (s.w.t.) was upon this fact that this baby should be grown up in the most important center of danger and no one had the ability and power of opposing with this Divine Will. Yes, the providence and power of the Almighty is not only in that if He wishes to destroy a powerful and tyrannical people He sends the forces of heaven and the earth for their destruction.
Showing power is in that He appoints the arrogant tyrants themselves as the destructive of them, and influences in their hearts and thoughts so effectively that they eagerly gather the fuel-wood by the fire of which they must be burnt; or they build a prison wherein they must die; or they set up a gallows-tree on which they must be put to death. The state of the arrogant powerful people of Pharaoh was also as this, and Moses’ fosterage and deliverance, in all stages, were done by their own hand:
Moses’ midwife was a Coptic woman. The maker of the deliverance box of Moses was a Coptic carpenter. Those who took the box from the waves of Nile were among ‘The people of Pharaoh’. The person who could open the door of the box was Pharaoh himself or his wife, ’Asiyah’. And, finally, the secure, peaceful, and educational place of Moses, who became brave and Pharaoh-breaker was that very palace of Pharaoh! And this is the providence.