Al-Qasas (The Stories)

38. “And Pharaoh said: ‘O Chiefs! No god do I know for you but myself; therefore, O’ Haman, light me a fire upon the clay, and build for me a tower, so that I may obtain knowledge of Moses’ God, and verily I think him to be one of the liars’.”

The existence of an arrogant mentality usually hinders the acceptance of the truth. As the verse indicates, Pharaoh said that he knew no god for his people but himself. The arrogant persons impose their beliefs and thoughts upon others and their slogan is that: whatever thing they do not know, then it does not exist.

In this noble verse, we are faced with the ninth scene from this adventurous and instructive story, and it is the scene of making a tower by the command of Pharaoh in order to knock out Moses (as).

We know that one of the customs of the skilful politicians is that whenever an important event occurs which is against their desire, they immediately begin to create a new scene so that it can attract, the attention of people to itself and dissuade their thought from that undesirable event.

It seems that the story of building a great tower had happened after the event of Moses’ struggle against sorcerers, since it is understood from Surah Mu’min in the Qur’an that this action was done at the time when the people of Pharaoh were planning to kill Moses (as) and the believer of the people of Pharaoh attempted to defend him; and we know that there was not such a thing existed before the struggle of Moses (as) with the sorcerers, but they were searching about Moses and that how they could beat him by means of the sorcerers.

Since the Qur’an has explained the event of the struggle of Moses against sorcerers in Suras: TaHa, ’A‘raf, Yunus, and Ash-Shu‘ara’, it has relinquished speaking about it again here and it has only referred to the subject of building the tower. This subject has been mentioned merely in this Surah and Surah Mu’min.

However, the news of Moses’ victory against sorcerers spread throughout Egypt. The subject of sorcerers’ belief in Moses (as) strengthened the matter, too. The stability of the government of Pharaoh was going to be in danger seriously, and it was very probable that the captured people might awake.

In any rate, the common thought and attention should be deviated from this issue, and there must be provided some mental engagements which, in the meantime, were accompanied with the munificence of the governmental organizations so that it could beguile people.

In this regard, Pharaoh started consulting and, consequently, his thought reached to the thing which is mentioned in the above verse.

It says:

“And Pharaoh said: ‘O Chiefs! No god do I know for you but myself…”

Pharaoh implicitly says that it is certain that he is the only god on the earth but, as for the god of heaven, there is no proof available for its existence. Yet, he does not miss caution and begins to search about it.

Then he turned to his minister, Haman, and, addressing him, said:

“…therefore, O’ Haman, light me a fire upon the clay…”

He ordered Haman to build a very high tower for him to climb it and get some information about the God of Moses, though it did not seem to him that Moses could be truthful.

The verse says:

“…and build for me a tower, so that I may obtain knowledge of Moses’ God, and verily I think him to be one of the liars’.”

When the building of the tower was finished, and they were not able to make it higher than that, one day Pharaoh went there with some ceremonies to climb that great tower personally. When he reached the top of the tower, he looked at the sky and observed its scenery like the same form that he used to see it on the level land and he found no change and variation in it.

It is said that he put an arrow in the bow and threw it toward the sky. The arrow struck a bird, or by his own aforetime plot, it returned back while it was bloody.

Pharaoh came down from that tower and told people:

“Go home, and have no anxiety, for I killed Moses’ God.”1

Surely, some of the contemporary simple-minded people of the government believed it and spread its news everywhere. They made a new amusement out of it for deluding people of Egypt.

It is notable that in this saying:

“…No god do I know for you but myself…”

Pharaoh did his utmost satanic deed. He counted his divinity certain and continued that whether there was any god other than him. Then, because of the lack of any proof, he negated it either.

In the third stage, in order to bring forth a proof for the absence of the existence of any other god, he designed the subject of the great tower.

All of these affairs show that he knew the matter well, but in order to beguile the people of Egypt and protecting his own position, he said those words.