Al A‘rāf

لاَُقَطِّعَنَّ أَيْدِيَكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ مِنْ خِلاَفٍ ثُمَّ لاَُصَلِّبَنَّكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ

قَالُوا إِنَّآ إِلَى رَبِّنَا مُنْقَلِبُونَ

124 . “Surely I will cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, then I will certainly crucify you all’.”

125 . “They said: ‘Verily unto our Lord we return’.”

The ambiguous threat of Pharaoh, which was referred to in the previous verse, is clearly stated in the verse under discussion. Here, Pharaoh takes an oath that he cuts off their hands and feet on opposite sides, i.e. the right hand and the left foot, or the left hand and the right foot. The verse says:

What Pharaoh undertook here against the sorcerers, who had believed in Moses (as), was a general behaviour that usually the tyrannical rulers have in their cowardly oppositions against the adherents of the Truth. On one side, they use the weapon of accusation against the demandant of the Truth to weaken them and their position both in the view of common people. And, on the other side, they rely on force, power, and threat to slaughter and destruction in order to break down their authority and will.

None of the two weapons of Pharaoh could defeat the decision of the sorcerers. In their answer, they heartily and decidedly refused him, as follows:

They said this statement with the meaning that if the Pharaoh’s threat could be done, they finally would become martyrs. In that case, not only the event might not harm them or decrease anything from them, but also it could be considered as an honour and a happiness for them.