Tafseer of The Forgiver · Ghafir · 40:26
And Pharaoh said, "Let me kill Moses and let him call upon his Lord. Indeed, I fear that he will change your religion or that he will cause corruption in the land."
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The discourse on the explanation of His statement, the Exalted: And Pharaoh said: Let me kill Moses, and let him call upon his Lord; verily, I fear that he will change your religion or that he will cause corruption to appear in the land (26).
The Exalted, whose mention is exalted, says: And Pharaoh said to his prominent men: Let me kill Moses, and let him call upon his Lord — the one whom he claims has sent Him to us — so that He might protect him against us. verily, I fear that he will change your religion says: verily, I fear that he will change your religion, upon which you are, through his sorcery.
The reciters differed over the recitation of His statement: or that he will cause corruption to appear in the land. Most of the reciters of Medina, Syria, and Basra recited it as "wa-an yuẓhira fī al-arḍi al-fasāda" (and that he will cause … to appear), without the alif, and thus it also stands in the codices (maṣāḥif) of the people of Medina. And most of the reciters of Kufa recited it as "aw an" (or that) with the alif, and likewise in their codices it stands "yaẓhara fī al-arḍ" with a fatḥa-vocalized yāʾ and "al-fasād" in the nominative.
And the correct view concerning this, in our opinion, is that they are two well-known recitations among the recitations of the regions, closely related in meaning. That is because corruption, when someone causes it to appear, is then visible, and when it appears, it appears through the causing-to-appear of the one who causes it to appear. Thus, in the recitation according to one of the two recitations there is a clear proof for the soundness of the meaning of the other. And as for the recitation of "aw an yuẓhira" with the alif and with its omission, those two are likewise closely related in meaning. That is because a matter, when it is changed into its opposite, then without doubt its opposite — that into which it was changed, the first — is that which is visible (al-ẓāhir), not that which was changed. So it makes no difference whether one joins to his report about his fear of Moses, that he would change their religion, with the wāw or with "aw" (or), because the changing of their religion was, in his view, the appearing of corruption, and the appearing of corruption was, in his view, the changing of the religion.
The explanation of the words is then: verily, I fear from Moses that he will change your religion, upon which you are, or that he will cause to appear in your land — the land of Egypt — the worship of his Lord, to whose worship he calls you, and that, in his view, was corruption.
And in accordance with what we have said concerning this, the people of interpretation have spoken.
* Mention of those who said that:
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: verily, I fear that he will change your religion: that is, your affair upon which you are, or that he will cause corruption to appear in the land — and corruption, in his view, was that one would act in obedience to Allah.
