It is also said that the qualification relates to their being secure from the need for official permission, for before this they could not enter Egypt except with authorization (1) from its kings. That is, “Enter it secure from requiring authorization, if Allah Most High wills,” (2) just as He says: “You will surely enter the Sacred Mosque, if Allah wills, in safety” (al-Fatḥ 48:27). (3)
It is also said that in (if) here means idh (when); that is, “when Allah willed,” just as Allah Most High says: “You will have the upper hand, if you are believers” (Āl ʿImrān 3:139)—that is, when you are believers. (4)
“And he raised his parents upon the throne,” meaning, upon the couch: he seated them both. Raising is the act of moving something to a higher place. “And they fell down before him in prostration,” meaning Jacob, his maternal aunt, and his brothers.
(1) Zad al-Masir reads it with an undotted r; this may be more fitting.
(2) Al-Zamakhshari states in al-Kashshaf: “The divine will is connected to entering in a state qualified by safety, because the intended meaning is that they should be safe in their entry. It is as though it were said: ‘Enter in peace and safety, if Allah wills’ ... The underlying sense is: ‘Enter Egypt safely; if Allah wills, you will enter safely.’ The apodosis is omitted because the context indicates it, and the conditional clause is then parenthetically inserted between the circumstantial qualifier and the one it qualifies.”
Al-Tibi said: “His words, ‘It is as though it were said ...,’ indicate that the construction conveys the sense of a supplication.” See al-Zamakhshari, al-Kashshaf, 2:277; al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 13:57.
(3) The text in parentheses is omitted from “B.”
(4) Four views thus result, summarized by Ibn al-Jawzi in Zad al-Masir, 4:289: First, that the wording involves transposition. Second, that the exception relates to safety; this view has two interpretations: either that he was not certain that adverse events would not befall them, or that people in former times feared the kings of Egypt and would enter only under their protection. Third, that it relates to entering Egypt, because he said this when he came out to meet them. Fourth, that the particle in means idh, “when.”