بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
طسٓمٓ
Ta, Seen, Meem.
تِلْكَ ءَايَٰتُ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ ٱلْمُبِينِ
These are the signs of the Manifest Book.
نَتْلُوا۟ عَلَيْكَ مِن نَّبَإِ مُوسَىٰ وَفِرْعَوْنَ بِٱلْحَقِّ لِقَوْمٍۢ يُؤْمِنُونَ
We relate to you truly some of the account of Moses and Pharaoh for a people who have faith.
إِنَّ فِرْعَوْنَ عَلَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَجَعَلَ أَهْلَهَا شِيَعًۭا يَسْتَضْعِفُ طَآئِفَةًۭ مِّنْهُمْ يُذَبِّحُ أَبْنَآءَهُمْ وَيَسْتَحْىِۦ نِسَآءَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْمُفْسِدِينَ
Indeed Pharaoh tyrannized over the land, reducing its people to factions, abasing one group of them, slaughtering their sons, and sparing their women. Indeed, He was one of the agents of corruption.
وَنُرِيدُ أَن نَّمُنَّ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ٱسْتُضْعِفُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ أَئِمَّةًۭ وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ ٱلْوَٰرِثِينَ
And We desired to show favour to those who were abased in the land, and to make them imams, and to make them the heirs,
وَنُمَكِّنَ لَهُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَنُرِىَ فِرْعَوْنَ وَهَٰمَٰنَ وَجُنُودَهُمَا مِنْهُم مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَحْذَرُونَ
and to establish them in the land, and to show Pharaoh and Haman and their hosts from them that of which they were apprehensive.
وَأَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَىٰٓ أُمِّ مُوسَىٰٓ أَنْ أَرْضِعِيهِ ۖ فَإِذَا خِفْتِ عَلَيْهِ فَأَلْقِيهِ فِى ٱلْيَمِّ وَلَا تَخَافِى وَلَا تَحْزَنِىٓ ۖ إِنَّا رَآدُّوهُ إِلَيْكِ وَجَاعِلُوهُ مِنَ ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ
We revealed to Moses’ mother, [saying], ‘Nurse him; then, when you fear for him, cast him into the river, and do not fear or grieve, for We will restore him to you and make him one of the apostles.’
فَٱلْتَقَطَهُۥٓ ءَالُ فِرْعَوْنَ لِيَكُونَ لَهُمْ عَدُوًّۭا وَحَزَنًا ۗ إِنَّ فِرْعَوْنَ وَهَٰمَٰنَ وَجُنُودَهُمَا كَانُوا۟ خَٰطِـِٔينَ
Then Pharaoh’s kinsmen picked him up that he might be an enemy and a cause of grief to them. Indeed Pharaoh and Haman and their hosts were iniquitous.
وَقَالَتِ ٱمْرَأَتُ فِرْعَوْنَ قُرَّتُ عَيْنٍۢ لِّى وَلَكَ ۖ لَا تَقْتُلُوهُ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَنفَعَنَآ أَوْ نَتَّخِذَهُۥ وَلَدًۭا وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
Pharaoh’s wife said [to him], ‘[This infant will be] a [source of] comfort to me and to you. Do not kill him. Maybe he will benefit us, or we will adopt him as a son.’ But they were not aware.
وَأَصْبَحَ فُؤَادُ أُمِّ مُوسَىٰ فَٰرِغًا ۖ إِن كَادَتْ لَتُبْدِى بِهِۦ لَوْلَآ أَن رَّبَطْنَا عَلَىٰ قَلْبِهَا لِتَكُونَ مِنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
The heart of Moses’ mother became desolate, and indeed she was about to divulge it had We not fortified her heart so that she might have faith [in Allah’s promise].
وَقَالَتْ لِأُخْتِهِۦ قُصِّيهِ ۖ فَبَصُرَتْ بِهِۦ عَن جُنُبٍۢ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
She said to his sister, ‘Follow him.’ So she watched him from a distance, while they were not aware.
۞ وَحَرَّمْنَا عَلَيْهِ ٱلْمَرَاضِعَ مِن قَبْلُ فَقَالَتْ هَلْ أَدُلُّكُمْ عَلَىٰٓ أَهْلِ بَيْتٍۢ يَكْفُلُونَهُۥ لَكُمْ وَهُمْ لَهُۥ نَٰصِحُونَ
Since before We had forbidden him to be suckled by any nurse. So she said, ‘Shall I show you a household that will take care of him for you and they will be his well-wishers?’
فَرَدَدْنَٰهُ إِلَىٰٓ أُمِّهِۦ كَىْ تَقَرَّ عَيْنُهَا وَلَا تَحْزَنَ وَلِتَعْلَمَ أَنَّ وَعْدَ ٱللَّهِ حَقٌّۭ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
That is how We restored him to his mother so that she might be comforted and not grieve, and that she might know that Allah’s promise is true, but most of them do not know.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated from: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, qummi (all six present).
The sūra opens with the disconnected letters Ṭā Sīn Mīm and the promise that what follows is a true recital of the account of Moses and Pharaoh, given specifically for a people who believe (v.3). All six sources read the opening as a deliberate frame: al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) states the sūra's whole purpose is a beautiful promise to a weak, oppressed believing minority — the Muslims of Mecca before the Hijra under the "pharaohs of Quraysh" — that God will reverse their state exactly as He reversed the state of the Israelites. al-Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān) and al-Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) ground the letters philologically (names of the sūras) and gloss al-mubīn as "that which makes right guidance clear from error" (Qatāda).
Verses 4–6 depict Pharaoh's tyranny: he "exalted himself," split the people into factions, and slaughtered the Israelites' sons. al-Mīzān draws out the moral logic — dividing a people to prevent their union is "the way of kings," and enslaving one people while freeing another is precisely the corruption (fasād) the verse names. Against this, God's counter-will: to favour the abased, make them imams and heirs, establish them, and show Pharaoh and Haman what they dreaded (vv.5–6).
Here the sources divide along an important interpretive line, which the runbook requires be reported as attributed rather than endorsed. Tafsīr al-Qummī reads the passage as a taʾwīl: the address is really to the Prophet, and "those abased… made imams and heirs" are Āl Muḥammad, while "Pharaoh and Haman" figure those who "usurped their right"; Qummī rests this on the grammar of minhum ("from them," plural) rather than minhu ("from him," i.e. Moses). al-Ṭūsī records more cautiously that "a group of our companions narrated the verse was revealed concerning the Mahdī," preferring it because the verbs are future-tense. al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) amasses the narrations of this school — the Prophet calling ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn "the oppressed after me… the imams after me," ʿAlī's oath that "the world shall incline toward us," the identification of the verse with the Qāʾim / Ṣāḥib al-Amr who fills the earth with justice, and even the Ḥakīma narration of the Twelfth Imam's birth ("We entrusted him as the mother of Moses entrusted Moses"). Crucially, al-Mīzān cites the same reports but frames them decisively: they are all jary and taṭbīq — application of a verse whose apparent referent remains the Children of Israel. This gives the passage its layered reading: a literal Exodus prophecy that the Imāmī tradition applies typologically to Ahl al-Bayt.
Verses 7–13 narrate the rescue of the infant Moses. All sources agree the "revelation" to his mother (v.7) was inspiration cast into the heart, not prophecy (Qatāda, and al-Mīzān). The Enlightening Commentary and the Arabic sources concur on the sequence: the sealed ark on the Nile, the drawing-out by Pharaoh's household, Āsiya's intercession ("a comfort of the eye… do not slay him"), the child's God-given refusal of every wet-nurse (a creational, not legal, prohibition — so al-Mīzān and al-Ṭabarsī), and the sister's ruse that restored him to his own mother — "that she might know God's promise is true." al-Ṭabarsī and al-Baḥrānī add the vivid narrative detail (the concealed pregnancy, the tooth-and-ember trial, Moses' three-day absence), with al-Baḥrānī and Qummī preserving the Bāqir tradition that Hārūn was Moses' elder full brother. The common thread all six draw is theological: the very hands that sought to destroy the deliverer were made to rear him — the outer circumstance one of doom, its inner reality the unopposable will of God to lift the weight of grace from the mighty onto the abased.