Tafsir of Al-A'raf 7:107

"He cast his staff." It is related by Ibn al-Mundhir and Ibn Abi Hatim that it was from 'awsaj (boxthorn). It is also reported from Ali—may Allah ennoble his face—that it was from almond wood. Abd ibn Humayd and Abu al-Shaykh extracted from Qatadah that he said: "It has been mentioned to us that it was the staff of Adam, upon him be peace, which a king gave to Moses when he set out for Madyan. It would illuminate for him at night, and during the day, he would strike the earth with it to bring forth his sustenance and beat down leaves with it for his sheep." The well-known account is that it was from the myrtle of Paradise and belonged to Adam, upon him be peace, then it reached Shu'ayb, who gave it to him. It is reported from Ibn Abbas—may Allah be pleased with them both—that its name was Ma’sha.

"And behold, it was a thu’ban," meaning a huge, long serpent. Al-Farra’ states that a thu’ban is the large male among snakes. Others said: "It is a snake absolutely." In Majma’ al-Bayan, it is stated that it is derived from "the water tha’aba," meaning when it gushes forth; it is as if it were named that because it flows like a neck of water when it gushes.

"Manifest," meaning clear in its nature; there is no doubt that it is a thu’ban. This is an indication that the transformation was real, not illusory. The preference for the nominal sentence (instead of a verbal one) is to signify the perfect speed of the transformation and the stability of the attribute of "serpent-hood" within it, as if it were like that originally.

It is reported from Ibn Abbas and al-Suddi that when he cast it, it became a yellow, hairy snake, its mouth gaping wide, with eighty cubits between its jaws. It rose from the earth by a distance of a mile and stood on its tail, placing its lower jaw on the earth and its upper jaw on the wall of the palace. It turned toward Pharaoh to seize him, so he jumped from his throne fleeing and defecated. In some reports, he defecated four hundred times that day, and in another, he continued to suffer from a stomach ailment until he drowned. It is said that it took Pharaoh's pavilion between its fangs and that it charged the people, causing them to flee in a crush, resulting in the death of twenty-five thousand of them. Pharaoh shouted, "O Moses, I adjure you by the One who sent you to take it, and I will believe in you and send the Children of Israel with you." So he took it, and it returned to being a staff as it was. According to Mu’ammar, it was as large as a city; it is said its length was eighty cubits, and Wahb ibn Munabbih says there were twelve cubits between its jaws.

According to all the accounts, there is no contradiction between what is here and His saying, "as if it were a jan (small snake)," based on the fact that jan is a small snake, and they said the incident was not a single event, or that the intention of that was to compare it to the jan in the lightness of its movement, not to describe its body. Or, because it is said that it transformed into a jan and then became a thu’ban, so the two states are narrated in two verses.

The verse is among the strongest evidences for the permissibility of a thing transforming from its reality—like copper into gold. For if it were mere illusion, the miraculous nature would be nullified, the mention of "manifest" would be meaningless, and resorting to something other than the apparent meaning would be groundless. This is also evidenced by the fact that there is no obstacle in Divine Power to the creative command being directed toward what has been mentioned and the will being specified for it. The claim that the changing of realities is impossible and that [Divine] Power does not relate to it—so that copper cannot become gold [and is only] plated lead—is rejected. The truth is the permissibility of transformation, either in the sense that He, Exalted is He, creates gold in place of the copper, which is the opinion of the verifiers, or by stripping away from the parts of the copper the attribute that made it copper and creating within it the attribute that makes it gold, which is the opinion of some theologians regarding the homogeneity of substances and their equality in accepting attributes. What is impossible is its transformation into gold while remaining copper, due to the impossibility of a thing being copper and gold at the same time in one moment. Based on one of these two considerations, the masters of exegesis lean in the matter of the staff.