“And Pharaoh said, ‘Bring me every skilled magician.’ (79)

“When the magicians came, Moses said to them, ‘Cast whatever you are going to cast.’ (80) Then, when they had cast, Moses said, ‘What you have brought is magic. Allah will surely nullify it. Indeed, Allah does not set right the work of the corrupters.’ (81) And Allah establishes the truth by His words, though the criminals may detest it. (82)

“Then none believed in Moses except a group of descendants from his people, for fear that Pharaoh and their chiefs would persecute them. Indeed, Pharaoh was exalted in the land, and he was surely among those who exceed all bounds. (83)”

“And Pharaoh said, ‘Bring me every skilled magician.’

“When the magicians came, Moses said to them, ‘Cast whatever you are going to cast.’ Then, when they had cast, Moses said, ‘What you have brought is magic.’” Abu Amr and Abu Jafar recited it as an interrogative, “Is it magic?” with a lengthened initial vowel; the others recited it without lengthening. This is supported by the recitation of Ibn Masud: “What you have brought is magic,” without the definite article. “Allah will surely nullify it. Indeed, Allah does not set right the work of the corrupters.”

“And Allah establishes the truth by His words,” that is, by His signs, “though the criminals may detest it.”

“Then none believed in Moses,” that is, none affirmed Moses to be truthful despite the signs he brought them, “except a group of descendants from his people.” They differed concerning the pronoun in “his people.” It was said that it refers to Moses, meaning the believing Israelites who were in Egypt and who departed with him. Mujahid said: They were the children of those Israelites to whom Moses had been sent; the fathers had perished, while the sons remained.

Others said that the pronoun refers to Pharaoh. Atiyyah narrated from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, that they were a small number of Pharaoh’s people who believed, among them Pharaoh’s wife, the believing man from Pharaoh’s household, Pharaoh’s treasurer, his treasurer’s wife, and his hairdresser. Another report from Ibn Abbas states that they were seventy thousand Coptic households belonging to Pharaoh’s people, whose mothers were from the Children of Israel; thus, each man followed his mother and his maternal uncles.

It was also said that they were people who escaped Pharaoh’s slaughter. When Pharaoh commanded that the sons of the Children of Israel be killed, any Israelite woman who gave birth to a son would entrust him to a Coptic woman out of fear that he would be killed. They grew up among the Copts and submitted to Allah on the day the magicians were defeated.

Al-Farra said: They were called descendants because their fathers were Copts while their mothers were from the Children of Israel—just as the children of the Persian people who settled in Yemen are called “the Sons,” because their mothers were of a different people from their fathers.”