Tawhid, in the story of Pharoah and Moses

I came across an article about tawhid, which makes use of the story about Moses and Pharoah to illustrate the Exaltedness and the Sublimity of God Almighty. The article refers quite a fair bit to Ibn Arabi’s literature. Just as a word of caution, Ibn Arabi is very deep in his writing, so read the article slowly and try to comprehend. Sometimes Ibn Arabi’s content is not that difficult to understand, just that the phrasing and the language used is tough.

If you do not read his work properly with understanding, you may think that Ibn Arabi is a heretic, indeed people have accused Ibn Arabi of being a kafir; he is far from that, he is Shaykhul Akbar and Muhyiddin. In all likelihood, our lack of knowledge is what makes us PERCEIVE Ibn Arabi as a heretic. Just remember that one sahaba either Abu Huraira or Anas Bin Malik ra (I cant rmbr exactly who) once said something like this; “I’ve inherited a lot (knowledge) from the Prophet, only half of which I relate to the people, the other half I keep to myself because if I were to relate that other half, they would surely cut my head off.”

So Here It Is :

Pharaoh in the Qur'an is the epitome of the arrogant, unjust, and egoistic man of power, who calls those below him to worship at the altar of his conceit. Acknowledging the truth of tawhid in his heart, he deliberately suppresses this truth in order to arrogate to himself the attributes that rightfully belong to Allah. For the thirteenth-century Andalusian Sufi Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, (d. 1240) Pharaoh epitomized the perversion of the vice-regal function of man by attempting to rule in his own name and without the guidance of Allah's Law. By contrast, Moses epitomized submission to tawhid and the divine Law, without the intermediary power of self-reliance (tadbir). For Ibn 'Arabi, the great paradox of the Moses narratives was that Pharaoh was aware of the reality of Moses' Messengership, as well as of the truth of tawhid, but refused to acknowledge either of them openly. In a complex and counter-intuitive chapter on "The Wisdom of Highness in the Mosaic Word" in his book Fusus al-Hikam (lit. "The Ring-Settings of Wisdom Teachings"), Ibn 'Arabi depicts Pharaoh as playing the role of Moses' antagonist like an actor playing a role in a drama. He knows that his words and actions are false, but he persists in his creation of falsehoods, thus fulfilling the divine will by parodying in his conceit the true authority that God reveals through Moses.

For 'Arabi, the figures of Moses and Pharaoh are inseparable from each other, like conjoined twins, each representing a contrasting yet complementary aspect of the human condition. This is why Pharaoh can be understood as obeying the Law of Allah while flouting the tenets of divine justice. It is also why he can be understood as acknowledging tawhid at the very moment that he appears to reject it. For Ibn 'Arabi, the key to "The Wisdom of Highness in the Mosaic Word" can be found in the verses where Pharaoh mockingly asks Moses, "And what is the 'Lord of the Worlds?'" [Qur'an 26:23]. According to Ibn 'Arabi, Pharaoh was fully aware of the answer to his question, and only asked it so that Moses could give the answer that his role required him to give:

[Moses] answered:
"The Lord of the Heavens and the Earth and what is in between-- if you are among those who have attained certainty."
[Pharaoh] said to those who surrounded him: "Do you not hear?"
Then [Moses] said: "Your Lord and the Lord of your fathers, from the beginning."
[Pharaoh] said: "Verily this Messenger of yours who has been sent to you is possessed!"
[Moses] said: "Lord of the East and the West, and all that is in between, if only you had sense!"
[Pharaoh] replied: "If you take any god other than me, I will surely make you a prisoner!" [26:24-29].

In Ibn 'Arabi's hands, Pharaoh's words become pregnant with double meaning. When Moses affirms the identity of Allah as Lord of all things, Pharaoh exclaims, "Do you not hear?" appearing to rebuke Moses, but actually affirming the truth of what he says. When Moses next describes Allah as the deity of a specific group of people (in this case Pharaoh's royal ancestors), Allah rebukes Moses' apparent shortsightedness by making Pharaoh say, "Verily this Messenger of yours is possessed!" When Moses returns to divine transcendence by proclaiming that Allah is Lord of the East and the West and all that is in between them, his understanding of the true nature of tawhid is affirmed by means of Pharaoh's parody of the divine commandment: "Thou shalt have no other god before Me."

As a final irony, Pharaoh (in Ibn 'Arabi's interpretation) is both destroyed by Allah and "saved" by being drowned in the crashing waves of the sea as he pursues the fleeing Israelites. As his body is crushed by the waves, his soul is "drowned" in the ocean of divine foreknowledge. If only Pharaoh had known, says Ibn 'Arabi, of the true highness within himself! The highness of the human being as vicegerent of Allah, whose altar is lit by a miraculous fire within -- a theophany of the divine, like the burning bush that spoke the word of Allah to Moses:

Like the fire of Moses, which [Pharaoh] perceived in the extremity of his need,
He, too, was the divinity, but was not aware of it!


The problem with Pharoah is not so much about not knowing what is Tawhid or having a wrong concept of Tawhid. He apparently knew what Tawhid is about and what it entails, just that Pharaoh wanted that greatness Tawhid speaks about all for himself, instead of Allah alone who rightfully owns that Tawhid.

In this case, Pharaoh was not being just, not being fair when he chose to allocate Tawhid to himself. He was not putting things in their rightful place, he was zalim.

Pharaoh chose to struggle against God and compete with God for ownership over Tawhid. Why would you even try to steal something from God? We know that whenever anyone competes against God, God always wins.