Tafsir of Ta-Ha 20:59

"He said" (meaning Moses, peace be upon him) said it at the sea. It is far-fetched for anyone to say that the speaker was Pharaoh; indeed, by my life, it is not worth attending to, and what compelled its proponent was the previous report from Wahb ibn Munabbih, so let him take note. "The day of adornment" is a festive day they had every year, in which they would adorn themselves and their marketplaces, as narrated from Mujahid and Qatadah. It is also said: It was the day of Nayruz (the Persian New Year), which was their new year.

Sa'id ibn Mansur, 'Abd ibn Humayd, and Ibn al-Mundhir recorded from Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with both of them) that it was the day of Ashura. It is through this that the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is interpreted: "Whoever fasts on the day of adornment attains what he missed of the fasting of that year, and whoever gives charity on that day attains what he missed of the charity of that year." It is also said: It was the day of breaking the Khalij (canal). In al-Bahr it is stated that it remains until today. It is also said: It was a day of a market for them. Others said: It was a Saturday, which was a day of rest and tranquility among them, as it is today among the Jews. The outward conduct of Abu Hayyan suggests that he favored it being a festive day that coincided with Ashura and happened to be a Saturday.

The apparent sense here is that "appointment" (maw'id) is a noun of time, as it is being informed about as "the day of adornment"—that is, the time of your appointment is the day famous among you. He (peace be upon him) did not explicitly state the "promise" (wa'd), but rather explicitly stated its time—even though it was the first thing the accursed one requested of him—to signal that he (peace be upon him) was more eager for it than he was, due to the cutting off of doubts and the establishing of proofs that would result from it, until it was as if it had already occurred from him (peace be upon him) before it was requested, and thus the request was unnecessary. In this is an indication of his complete confidence in his affair. Therefore, he (peace be upon him) singled out from among all times the "day of adornment," which is a witnessed day and one counted for gatherings. He did not mention the place which the accursed one had mentioned because, based on the first and third meanings, the accursed one only mentioned it to simulate favor toward him (peace be upon him), wishing thereby to show audacity. So, he (peace be upon him) turned away from mentioning it, contenting himself with mentioning the specific time to signal his independence from that and that all places are equal to him once the gathering is achieved.

As for the second meaning, it is possible that he (peace be upon him) sufficed with what the "day of adornment" entails, for it is the custom of people on feast days, in every time and every land, to go out to flat places and gather on leveled ground where nothing prevents them from seeing one another. In short, he (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) delivered his answer in the "style of wisdom" (uslub hakim). May Allah bestow grace upon the Interlocutor (Moses) and his well-ordered speech.

It is said: "Appointment" here is also an infinitive (masdar), and an annex is implied for the correctness of the information; that is, "Your promising is the promising of the day of adornment." The mention of the place is dispensed with due to the indication of the "day of adornment" toward it.

It is also said: "Appointment" in the question is a noun of place, and making it an object of "I shall not break" is based on expansion, as in the saying: "And a day we witnessed..." Or the pronoun in "We shall not break it" refers to the promise contained in the noun of place, along the lines of ("Act justly; it is closer to piety"), or to the appointment in the sense of a promise by way of istikhdam (using a word to refer to one meaning and its pronoun to refer to another), and the clause in both possibilities is parenthetical. It is not permissible for it to be an adjective, as an adjective clause must contain a pronoun returning to the noun being described, and the claim that it is omitted is groundless.

"And a place" (wa makana), according to Abu Ali, is a second object for "I shall make." It is also said: It is an appositive (badal) or explanatory conjunction (atf bayan).

The "appointment" in the answer is a noun of time, and the correspondence of the answer in terms of meaning is that the "day of adornment" points to a place famous for people gathering there on that day. Or, it is also a noun of place, and its meaning is the place of the occurrence of that which was promised, not the place of the wording of the promise as presumed. An annex is implied for the correctness of the information—that is, "the place of the day of adornment"—and the correspondence is evident.

It is said: "Appointment" in the first is an infinitive, but an annex is omitted from it—namely, "place"—and it is set in its place, and "place" is treated as an adjunct or a second object. In the second, it is either a noun of time, and its meaning is the time of the occurrence of the promised event (not the wording of the promise, as indicated by the saying: "They said, 'The separation,' I said, 'Its appointment is tomorrow'"), and the correspondence is in meaning; or it is a noun of place, and an annex is implied in the predicate, and the correspondence is evident as you have heard. Or it is also an infinitive, and two annexes are implied, one on the side of the subject and the other on the side of the predicate: "The place of your promising is the place of the day of adornment." The matter of correspondence is not hidden.

It is said: Two annexes are implied in the first, meaning "the place of fulfilling your promise," or one annex, but the annexation becomes one of slight connection. The most apparent interpretation is treating the infinitive as the object and implying an annex in the second: "Your appointment is the place of the day of adornment," and this is built upon a false assumption we have indicated.

It is said: It is a noun of time in both the first and second, and "We shall not break it" is a case of omission and connection (transitive by preposition), the original being "We shall not break in it," and "a place" is an adverb for "I shall make." This is what was pointed to in al-Kashf, where he said: "Perhaps the closest approach is to make the place 'broken' based on expansion, and the correspondence is in terms of meaning; or the meaning is: 'Make between us and you a place, and apart from that, a time of appointment that we shall not break in it.'" Thus, the correspondence is achieved in wording and meaning, and "a place" is a secondary adverb. End quote.

This was objected to with what is not hidden to those who have attained knowledge of the intricacies of our discourse. You know that the possibilities in this verse are very numerous, and the best of them is that which is most consistent with the excellence of the Revelation, with little omission and avoiding taking off the sandals before reaching the water. Reflect on this.

Al-Hasan, al-A'mash, 'Asim in one narration, Abu Haywah, Ibn Abi 'Ablah, Qatadah, al-Jahdari, Hubayrah, and al-Za'farani read "the day of adornment" (yawma al-zinati) with the accusative of "day" (yawma). This is manifest in that the intention by "appointment" is the infinitive (masdar), because a place and a time do not occur in a time, unlike an event. As for the first: because there is no benefit in it, as it occurs in all times. As for the second: because time cannot be a container for time in a true sense of containment, for it would necessitate the dwelling of a thing within itself. As for examples like "the forenoon of the day is in the day," it is from the containment of the whole for its parts, which is a figurative containment, and what we are dealing with is not of this type. So it is said, though there is a manifest refutation to it.

It is said: The outward sense is used to argue that the first "promise" is also an infinitive, because the second is the same as the first, to re-mention the indefinite as a definite. In al-Kashf, it says: "Perhaps the closest approach on this reading is to make the first a time and the second an infinitive; that is, 'Your promising is occurring on the day of adornment.'" The answer corresponds in meaning without affectation, for there is no difference between "the time of the promise is day so-and-so" (nominative) and "the promising is on day so-and-so" (accusative) in terms of the outcome. Rather, it is of the "style of wisdom," as it contains an increase.

And His saying, "And that the people be gathered in the forenoon" is a conjunction to "adornment," and it is said: to "day." The first is more apparent because it does not require interpretation. "Forenoon" (duhan) is in the accusative as an adverb, and it is the rising of the day. It is feminine and masculine. "Duhan" (with a fatha on the daad and elongated) is masculine, and it is at the height of the upper day.

It is permitted, on the reading with the accusative of "day," that "Your appointment" is the subject, with the implication of "time" as an annex to it—as in the case of "I came to you at the setting of the star"—and the adverb is attached to it, and "forenoon" is its predicate, intending for it to be definite because it is the forenoon of that specific day. If it were not definite, it would not correspond to their request, as they asked him (peace be upon him) for a specific appointment whose promise would not be broken. It is said: It is permissible for the appointment to be a time, and "forenoon" to be its predicate, and "the day of adornment" to be a preposed state (hal), in which case the definition of "forenoon" is unnecessary. But this is nothing. Furthermore, this definition is in the sense of specifying, not in the sense of making "forenoon" one of the conventional definites, as one might mistakenly assume.

Al-Tayyibi said: Ibn Jinni said: It is permissible for "that the people be gathered" to be a conjunction to "the appointment," as if it were said: "The fulfillment of your appointment and the gathering of the people in the forenoon is on the day of adornment." It is as if he made the appointment an expression for what is renewed on that day in terms of reward, punishment, and other things apart from the gathering, then joined the gathering to it as the joining of the specific to the general. End quote. And it is as you see.

Ibn Mas'ud, al-Jahdari, Abu 'Imran al-Jawni, Abu Nahik, and 'Amr ibn Qa'id read "you gather the people" (tuhshara al-nasa) with the 'ta' of address, and the accusative of "people." The one addressed by this is Pharaoh. It is narrated from them that they read with the 'ya' of the third person and the accusative of "people," and the pronoun in "he gathers" (yuhshar) on this reading is either Pharaoh—and he is mentioned in the third person according to the custom of speech with kings—or it is for the day, and the attribution is figurative, as in "he fasted his day." The author of al-Lawami' said: The agent is omitted because it is known, meaning "that the Gatherer gathers the people." You know that omitting the agent in such a case is not permissible according to the Basrans. Yes, it is said in such cases: The agent is a pronoun returning to the noun of the agent understood from the verb.