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I finished editing this wonderful and short treatise by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī on the Faith of Pharaoh. A short thread on the centuries-old problem in medieval Islam. Did Pharaoh die on belief or not? 1/
Dawānī was an Ashʿari Sunni theologian, philosopher, jurist, and sometimes mystic fond of the Akbarian tradition. He lived in Shiraz in the medieval era. In my view (as someone who spent years studying him), Dawānī is the most significant Sunnī thinker after Ghazālī and Rāzī. 2/
The treatise in question is titled Fī Īmān Firʿawn (On the Faith of Pharaoh). In the Islamic tradition, Pharaoh, is archetypal figure of arrogance and unhinged tyranny. The Qurʾan recalls his claims to divinity in 79.24: فقال أنا ربكم الأعلى ("I am your Lord, the most high")) 3/
The early exegetes and theologians glossed over 10.90 without much hesitation: despite his claims to submit to one God of the Israelites, Pharaoh's memento mori and last-minute conversion to the religion of the Israelites was insufficient and insincere. 4/
In his Tafsīr, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, responds to a question about a man who supposedly professes faith at the cusp of death moments before drowning. Rāzī says faith is predicated on sincere speech articulated by the soul ... as opposed to voiced speech, which is insincere. 5/
Going against the grain and centuries of consensus, the renewed mystic Ibn al-ʿArabī writing in his Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam settled on a contrarian reading. For Ibn al-ʿArabī, Pharaoh died sinless and forgiven of his previous defilements. In simple terms: Pharaoh died a believer. 6/
It was Dawānī who took it upon himself to defend the position of Ibn al-ʿArabī, even going against fellow Ashʿaris such as Rāzī. Dawānī opens his treatise with a candid remark: the objective is to refute those who accuse Ibn al-ʿArabī of disbelief for his defence of Pharaoh. 7/
Dawānī adds that, Pharaohs last-minute proclamation of faith is perfectly sound. "Whoever has a healthy nature and a sound mind knows that [Pharaoh] made this statement [of belief] only in the soundness of his mind and not because he was at the moment of drowning." 8/
Agreeing with the take that belief is assent of heart, Dawānī explains that Pharaoh's verbal profession is in and of itself theological and juridically sound -- and one cannot judge beyond that. For Dawānī, the curse placed on Pharaoh does not placed him outside the community. 9/
Dawānī further argues that the punished to be meted out (as Qurʾan 10.90) is not other-worldly but thisworldly. It was the torment of drowning. Hence Pharaoh served his punishment before departing to the other-world. There's more details to cover, but I will stop here. FIN.
I forgot to add an image of the manuscript I worked with. It’s the Leiden MS.
