LessonsNon-interrogative Uses of Interrogatives: Rhetorical PurposesQuiz

وَلَقَدْ نَجَّيْنَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ مِنَ الْعَذَابِ الْمُهِينِ مِنْ فِرْعَوْنَ
We indeed delivered the Children of Israel from humiliating torment, from Pharaoh.

In the commonly recited reading, min Firʿawna has a preposition followed by a genitive name. The source also records a reading reported from Ibn ʿAbbās that treats it interrogatively as man Firʿawnu: man with a fatḥa on the mīm and Firʿawnu in the nominative.

That interrogative is not a request for an unknown name: it amplifies the terror of Pharaoh's cruelty, an instance of tahwīl. The distinctive syntax of the reported reading must not be confused with the case and function of the common reading.

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Tahwīl: magnifying something terrifying

Non-interrogative Uses of Interrogatives: Rhetorical Purposes

وَلَقَدْ نَجَّيْنَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ مِنَ الْعَذَابِ الْمُهِينِ مِنْ فِرْعَوْنَ
We indeed delivered the Children of Israel from humiliating torment, from Pharaoh.

In the commonly recited reading, min Firʿawna has a preposition followed by a genitive name. The source also records a reading reported from Ibn ʿAbbās that treats it interrogatively as man Firʿawnu: man with a fatḥa on the mīm and Firʿawnu in the nominative.

That interrogative is not a request for an unknown name: it amplifies the terror of Pharaoh's cruelty, an instance of tahwīl. The distinctive syntax of the reported reading must not be confused with the case and function of the common reading.