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."
Allah consoles His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ for the disbelief of his people and gives him the glad tidings of good consequences and victory in this world and the Hereafter, as happened to Musa bin `Imran, peace be upon him, whom Allah sent with clear proof and definitive evidence. Allah says:
بِـَايَـتِنَا وَسُلْطَانٍ مُّبِينٍ
(with Our Ayat, and a manifest authority). Authority means proof and evidence.
إِلَى فِرْعَوْنَ
(to Fir`awn), who was the king of the Copts of Egypt.
وَهَـمَـنَ
(Haman) who was his adviser.
وَقَـشرُونَ
(and Qarun) who was the richest trader among the people of his time.
Frequent references were made earlier in the text to the warnings given to deniers of pure monotheism and prophethood which brought more opposition and hostility from disbelievers. Naturally, this situation made the Holy Prophet ﷺ sad. It was to comfort him that, in nearly two sections cited above, mentioned there is the story of Sayyidna Musa (علیہ السلام) and Pharaoh. In this story, there is a lengthy dialogue between the Pharaoh, his people and a righteous elder who, despite being a scion of the House of the Pharaoh, had believed in the faith of Sayyidna Musa (علیہ السلام) after having seen the miracles shown at his hands - but, had kept his faith secret until that time. Once this dialogue took place, his faith stood declared automatically and conclusively.
In addition to arguments, the prophets were given miraculous supports which provided ample proof of their having been sent and commissioned by God. But, acceptance of the Truth by a man comes at the cost of negating his own self, which is the most difficult sacrifice for him. It was for this reason alone that Pharaoh and his courtiers did not accept Moses’ prophethood, in spite of very clear arguments in its favour. While, on the one hand, they started creating the impression among the people that Moses’ claim to prophethood was baseless and his miracles were feats of magic. On the other hand, they decided to more vigorously implement their earlier policy of reducing the population of the Children of Israel, so that Moses should not be able to establish a firm foundation among his own community. But they did not know that they were using these strategies not against Moses but against God, and against God no strategy devised by any human being could be successful.
Uthmani text of the Madinah mushaf (King Fahd Complex). Translation: Saheeh International. Tafsir via Quran.com.
