Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 611
UNVEILING OF THE ‘UNSEEN' BY THE QURAN - A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE. One possible meaning of this address by God to. Pharaoh is that the time for saving his life was over, hence it would be only his dead body which would be saved. The other possible meaning would be that the time for the acceptance of his faith had expired, hence his soul would not be redeemed. In this case, only his body would be saved to live on like that of a zombie without a soul. To our understanding it is the latter meaning which is intended by the Quran. To support our inference further, we cite the. Quranic style in which this episode is narrated. Of particular interest is the expression: We will save thee in thy نُنَجِيكَ بِبَدَنكَ 3. body alone. Now Pharaoh was evidently concerned for his survival here on earth, rather than the retrieval of his corpse. If neither his spiritual nor his physical life was to be saved, what would this promise mean? Evidently Pharaoh was not praying for the rescue of his dead body. . If his prayer was accepted even partially, as is evident from the Quran, then to cause him to die both physically and spiritually seems out of the question. It is tantamount to a total denial of what he begged for. His profession of faith in the God of Israel must have been made for fear of his life. Hence it was justifiably rejected as meaningless. All that is promised is that only his body would be redeemed but not his soul. But most Muslim scholars insist that his plea was totally rejected and the promise of saving the body referred only to the recovery of his corpse from the sea. . That too, according to them, is no small miracle under the conditions described both in the Bible and the Quran. . Even the promise of the retrieval of his corpse was in fact a great favour to the drowning Pharaoh. . The Pharaohs, they argue, were an extremely proud dynasty. Even the mere assurance that his body would be preserved must have brought some comfort to his dying 573