123 Preface قالَ فِرعَونُ آمَنتُم بِهِ قَبلَ أَن آذَنَ لَكُم ۖ إِنَّ هٰذا لَمَكرٌ مَكَرتُموهُ فِي المَدينَةِ لِتُخرِجوا مِنها أَهلَها ۖ فَسَوفَ تَعلَمونَYusuf AliSaid Pharaoh: “Believe ye in Him before I give you permission? Surely this is a trick which ye have planned in the city to drive out its people: but soon shall ye know (The consequences).1Pharaoh and his Court were doubly angry: first because they were made to look small when confronted by the power of God, and secondly, because their dupes and instruments were snatched away from them. These men, the sorcerers, at once recognised the Signs of God, and in their case the mission of Moses and Aaron was fulfilled. They turned back on their past life of imposture, makebelieve, false worship, and oppression of the weak, and confessed the One true God. As usually happens, hardened sinners resent all the more the saving of any of their companions from sin and error. Judging other people’s motives by their own, they accuse them of duplicity, and if they have the power, they take cruel revenge. Here the Pharaoh threatens the repentant sinners with the extreme punishment for treason and apostasy (cutting off of hands and feet, combined with an ignominious death on the cross, as in the case of the worst malefactors). But they remained firm, and prayed to God for patience and constancy. Probably their influence spread quietly in the commonality. Ultimately it appeared on the Throne itself, in the person of Amenophis IV about five or six generations afterwards. See Appendix 5, on Egyptian Religion, printed at the end of this Sūra.