It is narrated that when they picked up the coffin, they tried to open it, but they could not. They attempted to break it, but it exhausted them. Then Asiya approached and saw a light inside the coffin. She worked on it and opened it, and there was a boy with light between his eyes, sucking his thumb like milk, and they loved him. He was the daughter of Pharaoh, and the doctors said to him: 'She will not be cured except by him.' Before the sea, there exists in it a resemblance to a human, and its remedy is his saliva. So the leprous woman smeared her leprosy with his saliva and was cured. [The saying 'and she was cured' in the dictionaries: she was cured of the disease, cured with a dhamma. The people of Hijaz say: she was cured of the disease, cured with a fatha. And so-and-so became cured of his illness.] It is said that when she looked at his face, she was cured. She said: 'Indeed, this is a blessed soul.' This is one of the reasons they were drawn to him. The misguided ones among his people said: 'He is the boy we are warned against. So permit us to kill him.' They intended to do so, but Asiya said: 'He is a comfort to my eyes and yours.' Pharaoh said: 'For you, not for me.' It is narrated in a hadith: 'If he had said he is a comfort to my eyes as he is to yours, Allah would have guided him as He guided her.' [This is part of a long hadith about the trials. We have mentioned in Ta-Ha that Al-Nasa'i narrated it from the hadith of Ibn Abbas, and in it she came to Pharaoh and said: 'A comfort to my eyes and yours.' Pharaoh said: 'He will be for you, but as for me, I have no need for him.' The Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, swore by that which he swears by: 'If Pharaoh had acknowledged that he could have a comfort to his eyes as his wife acknowledged, Allah would have guided him as He guided her.' But Allah deprived him of that.] This is on the basis of hypothesis and estimation, meaning: if he were not sealed upon his heart like Asiya, he would have said something like her words and would have submitted as she submitted. This—if the hadith is authentic—is its interpretation, and Allah knows best about its authenticity.

It is narrated that she said to him: 'Perhaps he is from another people, not from the Children of Israel.' 'Comfort to the eyes' is the subject of a deleted predicate, and it is not strong to make it the predicate nor 'do not kill him' as a news. If it were in the accusative, it would be stronger. The reading of Ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, is evidence that it is a news. He read: 'Do not kill him, a comfort to my eyes and yours,' by placing 'do not kill him' first.

'Perhaps he will benefit us, for in him are signs of good fortune and indications of benefit for his people.' This is because of what she witnessed of the light and the sucking of the thumb and the cure of the leprous woman. Perhaps she discerned in his features the nobility indicative of his being beneficial.

'Or we adopt him, for he is worthy of adoption, and to be a son to some of the kings.' If you say: 'And they do not perceive' is a state, what is its subject? I say: Its subject is the family of Pharaoh. The estimation of the speech is: 'So the family of Pharaoh picked him up to be for them an enemy and a sorrow.' And the wife of Pharaoh said such and such while they do not realize that they are in a great error in picking him up and hoping for benefit from him and adopting him. And the saying: 'Indeed, Pharaoh...' is an interjection occurring between the connected and the connector, affirming the meaning of their error. How beautiful is the arrangement of this speech for one who is skilled in the science of the merits of arrangement.