"I have trusted... in whom they have trusted"
ءَامَنتُ أَنَّهُۥ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱلَّذِىٓ ءَامَنَتْ بِهِۦ بَنُوٓا۟ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ
āmantu annahu lā ilāha illā alladhī āmanat bihi banū Isrāʾīl — "I have trusted that there is no god except the One in whom the Children of Israel have trusted"
In (10:90) the verb āmana (form IV) appears twice in one verse: the drowning Pharaoh declares his own trust using the very verb that describes the trust of the Children of Israel, so that his late declaration is framed as an adoption of their prior trust.
The verse narrates that Pharaoh, overtaken by drowning, says: “I have trusted that there is no god except the One in whom the Children of Israel have trusted, and I am among those who have surrendered” (10:90). The root ʾ-m-n occurs twice, both times as a form IV perfect verb: first as āmantu, a first-person singular (“I have trusted”), then as āmanat, a third-person feminine singular whose subject is banū Isrāʾīl (“the Children of Israel have trusted”). The two clauses are syntactically linked: the object of the speaker's trust is identified as “the One in whom the Children of Israel have trusted,” so the second occurrence defines the content of the first. The mirror is asymmetric in person and subject: the speaker names his own act with a 1S verb, and names the other party's act with a 3FS verb, joined by the relative pronoun alladhī and the preposition bihi. The verse's own words present the declaration as occurring at the moment “drowning overtook him,” and as trust in the same object as the trust of the Children of Israel, whom the verse earlier says were carried across the sea. The verse does not itself evaluate the declaration beyond reporting it and the circumstances it names. The pairing shows the verse using one verb root twice to make one party's act echo another's, with the relative construction marking the second occurrence as the standard the first refers to.
Where it occurs
- 10:90 The only occurrence in the sample: the drowning Pharaoh's declaration of trust (1S) is anchored by the relative clause naming the trust of the Children of Israel (3FS).
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