Taha: (58) "We will surely bring you magic like it."

Then he claimed that he would oppose him with the like of it, saying: "We will surely bring you magic like it." The fa (ف) is for ordering what follows it upon what precedes it. The lam (ل) occurs in the response to an implied oath, as if it were said: "If it is such, then by Allah, we will surely bring you magic like your magic."

"So make between us and you an appointment." That is, a promise. It is a verbal noun (masdar mimi), not a noun of time or place, because the manifest meaning is that His saying, the Exalted, "we will not fail it," is a description of it. The pronominal suffix returns to it. If it were a time or a place, the failure would necessarily attach to the time or place, but failure pertains to the promise. It is said: "He failed his promise," not "He failed the time of his promise" nor "its place." Meaning: We will not fail that promise, neither we nor you.

The accursed one delegated the matter of the appointment to Moses, peace be upon him, to avoid attributing it to weakness of heart or constricted circumstances, to display boldness, and to demonstrate that he is capable of preparing the means of opposition and arranging the tools of conflict, whether the time be long or short. Just as the placing of his pronoun before the pronoun of Moses, peace be upon him, and the interposition of the word of negation between them, is to signify his haste in declaring that he would not fail. And the fact that he does not fail does not necessitate that he [Moses], peace be upon him, does not fail. For this reason, he emphasized the negation by repeating its particle.

Abu Ja’far and Shaibah read "we will not fail it" (la nukhlifuhu) in the jussive mood, as a response to the command, meaning: "If you make that, we will not fail it."

"A neutral place" (makānan suwan), meaning: midway between us and you, as has been narrated from Mujahid and Qatadah. That is, a location situated at exactly half the distance between us. This is the meaning of Abu Ali’s statement: "As near to you as it is to us." To this effect is the poet's saying: "And our father had settled his family in a place, / midway between Qays Ghaylan and the Fazar." Or [it means] a middle place, i.e., fair, as has been narrated from al-Suddi, not the place [itself]. If its proximity is not weighted to one side over the other, it is balanced between the two sides. Ibn Abi Hatim narrated from Ibn Zayd that he said: "Meaning a level place on the earth, with no ruggedness, no mountain, no hill, and no depression that would hide those present from one another." His intent is a place where those standing can see one another, and there is nothing to hide any of them, so that he may see all that issues from you and the magicians. In this is the display of boldness and strong confidence in victory, such as it is. This meaning, in my view, is very sound, and a group [of scholars] has adopted it. It is also said: The meaning is a place where our situation is equal, where conditions are the same, in which no position of authority is considered and no politics are conducted, but rather, there, the leader and the led, the ruler and the ruled are united. It is not devoid of fairness, and it perhaps returns to the meaning of "neutral/fair."

It is said: Suwan is in the sense of "other," and the intent is a place other than this place; but this is nothing, because siwa in this sense is not used except in a genitive construction (idafa), and it is not severed from the genitive. The accusative of makānan is because it is the object of an implied verb indicated by maw’idan (appointment), meaning: "Appoint a place," not for maw’idan, because, as Ibn al-Hajib said, it is a verbal noun that has been described, and what is in the accusative by a verbal noun is part of its completion, and a thing is not described until after it is complete. Thus, it is like an adjective joined before its qualification is complete, which is not permissible.

Some grammarians held that it is permissible to describe the verbal noun before it acts, but this is weak. Ibn Atiyyah said: It is permissible to describe it before it acts if the object is an adverb, due to their latitude regarding it, which they do not allow elsewhere. From this, some permitted that makānan be in the accusative as an adverb for maw’idan. This was refuted by stating that the condition for the accusative as an adverb is missing here. Al-Radi said: It is required for the accusative of makānan as an adverb that its operator contains the meaning of "remaining" in the place, like qumtu (I stood) and qa’adtu (I sat) and taharrakta makānaka (you moved in your place). Therefore, it is not permissible to say, for instance, "I wrote the book in your place" or "I killed him and insulted him in your place." It was countered that what al-Radi mentioned is not accepted, as there is no barrier to saying to someone who wants to draw near to you to speak to you: "Speak in your place." Yes, it is not consistently good in every place.

It is permissible for it to be an adverb for His saying, the Exalted, "we will not fail it," provided it is implied with the meaning of "coming" or "bringing." It is also permitted that it be an adverb for an implied word that acts as a circumstantial qualifier (hal) from the agent of nukhlifuhu, and a specific "being" is implied due to the appearance of the context: i.e., "We will come [to] or bring [to] a place."

Abu Ja’far, Nafi’, Ibn Kathir, and Ibn Amr read siwan with a kasra on the sin and tanwin in continuity. The rest of the seven read with a damma and tanwin similarly. Abu Bakr, Hamzah, and al-Kisa’i paused with imala (inclining the vowel), and Warsh and Abu Amr [read it] between the two.

Al-Hasan, in one narration, read like the rest of the seven, except he did not vocalize with tanwin when pausing or continuing. Isa read like the first two, except he also did not vocalize with tanwin when pausing or continuing. The reason for the lack of tanwin in continuity is to treat it like a pause in the dropping of the tanwin, and the damma and kasra, as Muhyi al-Sunnah and others said, are two dialects for siwa, like ’udan and ’udin.

Some linguists mentioned that fi’lan with a kasra on the fa is specific to frozen nouns, like ’inab (grape), and nothing of the sort came in the adjective form except ’udan (plural of ’aduw - enemy). Al-Zamakhshari added siwan and others, narrated in the sense of murū. Al-Akhfash said: Siwa is shortened (maqsur) if you give the sin a kasra or a damma, and extended (mamdud) if you give it a fatha; thus there are three dialects. In all of them, it is in the sense of "other" and in the sense of "fair" and "middle" between the two parties. The most elevated of the dialects, according to al-Nahhas, is siwan with the kasra.