Choosing him is a good manner that they observed with him, just as craftsmen do when they meet, like debaters, before they engage in argument, and like wrestlers before they prepare for wrestling. Their saying, "And if we are the ones who throw," indicates their desire to throw before him, by affirming their connected pronoun with the separated one and defining the news, or defining the news and inserting the separation. Moses allowed them what they desired, showing disdain for their status, a lack of concern for them, and confidence in what he was about to receive from heavenly support, and that the miracle would never be overcome by magic. They bewitched the eyes of the people, showing them through tricks and sorcery. [Mawlid said: "Its meaning is that they showed them through tricks and sorcery... etc." Ahmad said: The belief of the Mu'tazila is the denial of the existence of magic, devils, and jinn in a long discourse of theirs. The belief of the Ahl al-Sunnah is to affirm the phenomena as they are, because reason does not deny the existence of that. It has been reported that it occurred, so it is necessary to acknowledge its existence. It does not prevent the Ahl al-Sunnah from believing that a magician can ascend in the air and narrow down to enter a tight hole, nor does it prevent that Allah can act upon the magician's guidance with what He alone has the power to do, and this occurs by the power of Allah, glorified and exalted is He, at the guidance of the magician. This is the truth and the sincere belief. I have included this section because al-Zamakhshari's words do not lack a hint of denial, except that this decisive text about its occurrence restrains him from explicitly defending and revealing the truth, and does not allow him to maintain the Mu'tazila belief from expressing what is in his heart, so he calls it sorcery and trickery. And certainly, it is known that sorcery does not learn in the hand of Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, even with its bending, nor does it affect the master of humanity until it seems to him that he approaches his wives while he does not approach them. This and similar occurrences have been reported widely and truly. The main point is that everything that occurs is by the power of Allah, glorified and exalted is He, so it does not prevent that He, glorified and exalted is He, can bring about wonders at the guidance of the magician, leading astray whom He wills and guiding whom He wills. And Allah is the grantor of success. They made it appear to him that the truth was contrary to it, as His saying, "It is made to appear to him from their magic that it is moving." It has been narrated that they threw thick ropes and long sticks, and they appeared as snakes, filling the ground and climbing over one another, and they terrified them with a great magic in the realm of sorcery. It has been narrated that they colored their ropes and sticks and made them appear to move. It was said: They placed mercury in them to deceive what they were connected to, whether it is relative or gerundive, meaning: what they deceive, that is, they turn it from truth to falsehood and distort it. Or their deception, naming the deceived as the deception. It has been narrated that when it swallowed the valley full of wood and ropes, and Moses raised his staff, it returned to being as it was, and Allah, by His power, eliminated those great masses or divided them into fine parts, saying to the magicians: If this were magic, our ropes and staffs would have remained. So the truth occurred and was established. Among the strange interpretations is: So their hearts fell, meaning it had an effect on them, from their saying. They fell and turned into humbled ones, and the magicians were thrown down and fell prostrate, as if they were thrown down due to the intensity of their falling. It was said: They could not restrain themselves from what they saw, so it was as if they were thrown down. And from Qatadah: They were disbelievers and magicians at the beginning of the day, and by the end, they were righteous martyrs. And from al-Hasan: You see him born in Islam and raised among Muslims, selling his religion for this and that, while these are disbelievers who grew up in disbelief, offering themselves to Allah.