Friday Focus: Pharaonic Order

Pharaonic order refers to states that bank on dividing people into factions. The social and the economic order in such a state are worked out to benefit a few at the cost of so many. The order corrupts the society with adverse consequences, as the Holy Verse notes: 

”Pharaoh exalted himself in the land, and divided its people into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons, while sparing their daughters. He was truly a corrupter” (28:4)

   

In Lane’s Quranic lexicography, it is noted that Firaun in Quranic idiom is derived from the roots of the vernacular—Fae, Rae and Noon.  One of the basic terms derived from these roots is Furoon, which is the classical Arabic term for an Oven. This may be why the term Firaun is used for mind-sets that create an Oven-Like, Hellish state of affairs on Earth. Firaun basically symbolises tyrannical and oppressive regimes and Political/Economic Concepts that make the lives of the ruled a living hell. 

Pharaonic order is thus based on dividing people, pitting one group against the other. Such an order works out in contemporary times also through a variety of displays like    party politics, nationalism, religion, petty commercialism. Contemporary world has likes of Hamaan and Qaroon—the persons who worked out the Pharaonic order in ancient Egypt. While as Hamaann tailored the social order to suit the regime, Qaroon worked out the economic order, with concentration of means of sustenance in the hands of the elite. The masses were left with barely the loaves.   

The persecution of a group of them– slaughtering their sons, while sparing their daughters refers to Hebrews—the migrants living among the native Egyptians, as the ruling Pharaoh was informed that a Hebrew born son might spell danger to the exalted. 

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