According to more than one of the early scholars, it turned into a serpent with an enormous neck and a terrifying, imposing form. The people scattered from its path in panic, fleeing in haste and keeping well away from it, while the serpent advanced toward the ropes and staffs they had thrown, swallowing them one after another with unmatched speed, and the spectators looked on in amazement.
As for the magicians, what they beheld filled them with dread and bewilderment. They witnessed something that had never crossed their minds and lay entirely outside the bounds of their craft. At that moment they realized, by the knowledge they possessed, that this was not sorcery, sleight-of-hand, impossibility, illusion, trickery, calumny, or misguidance; it was the Truth—something that only the True One who had sent this Messenger, supported by the truth, could bring about. Allah lifted the veil of heedlessness from their hearts, illuminated them with the guidance He had placed within them, removed their hardness, and they turned back to their Lord. They fell down in prostration and proclaimed openly before the crowd, fearing neither punishment nor affliction: “We believe in the Lord of Aaron and Moses.”
Allah the Exalted says:
“Then the magicians fell down in prostration. They said, ‘We believe in the Lord of Aaron and Moses!’
Pharaoh said, ‘You believed in him before I gave you permission? He is your chief who taught you magic. I shall surely cut off your hands and feet on opposite sides and crucify you on the trunks of palm-trees, and you will certainly know which of us is more severe and more lasting in punishment.’
They said, ‘We will never prefer you to what has come to us of clear proofs, nor to the One who created us. So decree whatever you wish to decree; you only decree concerning this worldly life.
Indeed, we have believed in our Lord so that He may forgive us our sins and the magic you compelled us to practice. Allah is better and more enduring.
Whoever comes to his Lord as a criminal—for him is Hell; he will neither live there nor die.
But whoever comes to Him as a believer who has done righteous deeds—for such people are the highest ranks:
Gardens of perpetual residence through which rivers flow, abiding therein forever. That is the reward of those who purify themselves.’” (Tā Hā 20:70–76)
Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿIkrima, al-Qāsim ibn Abī Bazzah, al-Awzāʿī, and others said: When the magicians prostrated, they were shown their dwellings and palaces in Paradise being prepared and adorned for their arrival, and for that reason they took no notice of Pharaoh’s intimidation, threats, and warnings.
When Pharaoh saw that the magicians had embraced Islam and were publicly extolling Moses and Aaron in such noble terms, he was alarmed. What he beheld astounded him and blinded both his insight and his sight. A master of plotting, scheming, deception, and refined stratagems for turning people away from the path of Allah, he addressed the magicians in the presence of the people, saying, “You believed in him before I gave you permission?”—meaning: Why did you not consult me about this grave affair you have undertaken before my subjects? He then threatened and menaced, thundered and raged, and uttered the blatant lie: “He is indeed your chief who taught you magic.” In another verse he said: “This is a conspiracy you have contrived in the city so that you might drive out its people, but you will soon know” (al-Aʿrāf 7:123).
Every rational person can see that this claim is sheer calumny, rife with disbelief, falsehood, and delirium; it would not deceive even small children. All the people—his own subjects and others alike—knew that Moses had never laid eyes on these men in his life; how, then, could he be their chief who taught them magic? Moreover, he had neither gathered them together nor even known of their meeting until the event itself occurred