Tafseer of The Heights · Al-A'raaf · 7:124
I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides; then I will surely crucify you all."
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 statement concerning the interpretation of His words: لأُقَطِّعَنَّ أَيْدِيَكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ مِنْ خِلافٍ ثُمَّ لأُصَلِّبَنَّكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ (124) ("I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, then I will surely crucify you all.") (7:124)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose mention is exalted, says, reporting about the statement of Firʿawn to the sorcerers when they believed in Allah and held His messenger Mūsā to be truthful: "I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides" — and that is that from one of them the right hand and the left foot is cut off, or that his left hand and his right foot are cut off, so that in the cutting (qaṭʿ) he sets the two limbs opposite to each other; and this opposition between the two is the "cutting off on opposite sides" (al-qaṭʿ min khilāf).
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And it is said that Firʿawn was the first to institute this cutting off on opposite sides. "Then I will surely crucify you all" — and Firʿawn said this only when he saw Allah's forsaking of him, and the victory of Mūsā — peace be upon him — over him, and his overpowering of him.
14956 — Ibn Wakīʿ related to us, he said: Abū Dāwūd al-Ḥafarī and Ḥabbawayh al-Rāzī related to us, on the authority of Yaʿqūb al-Qummī, on the authority of Jaʿfar ibn Abī al-Mughīra, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, then I will surely crucify you all" — he said: the first to crucify, and the first to cut off the hands and the feet on opposite sides, was Firʿawn.
