look towards You — look towards the mountain
أَنظُرْ إِلَيْكَ
anẓur ilayka — that I may look towards You
In (7:143) Moses asks to look towards his Lord, and the reply redirects the same verb of looking towards the mountain, so the requested act is answered not with a refusal of looking but with a change of its object.
The root n-ẓ-r occurs twice in (7:143), both as singular forms of the verb, but with different persons, moods and objects. Moses' request uses a first-person jussive, أَنظُرْ إِلَيْكَ, "that I may look towards You," attached to the imperative أَرِنِى, "show me". The reply, لَن تَرَىٰنِى, "You will never see Me," denies seeing with a different verb (root r-ʾ-y), yet the speaker then issues a second-person masculine imperative of the same root n-ẓ-r: ٱنظُرْ إِلَى ٱلْجَبَلِ, "look towards the mountain." The structure is a mirror: the act Moses wishes to direct at his Lord is taken up and redirected to another object, with a stated condition — فَإِنِ ٱسْتَقَرَّ مَكَانَهُۥ فَسَوْفَ تَرَىٰنِى, "so if it remains settled in its place, then you will see Me" — which ties the seeing of the speaker to what happens to the mountain. The verse then reports the manifestation to the mountain, its being made crushed, and Moses falling stunned. The pairing shows the verse distinguishing between looking (n-ẓ-r) and seeing (r-ʾ-y): the request to look is answered with a command to look, while the promise of seeing is deferred and conditional. The mirror thus marks a transfer of the same action from one party and object to another party and object within a single exchange.
Where it occurs
- 7:143 Moses' first-person jussive أَنظُرْ إِلَيْكَ states the purpose of his request: to look towards his Lord.
- 7:143 The second-person imperative ٱنظُرْ إِلَى ٱلْجَبَلِ redirects the same verb of looking towards the mountain as the test for whether Moses will see.
All Qur'anic expressions