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468 Adam Silverstein"Egypt." 4 But in the Qur'an there is a definite distinction between the Egyptianruler in the time of Joseph and that in the time of Moses and it is only the latter whois called "Fir'awn." Thus, the Bible understands "Pharaoh" to be a regnal titlewhile the Qur'an takes Fir' awn to be a more sharply defined historical character.A second difference between Pharaoh and Fir'awn is that Pharaoh basically ·acts alone whereas Fir'awn has "helpers," both named and anonymous. Thisdifference may be explained away easily: already in Late Antique monotheistic .circles Pharaoh was widely believed to have had henchmen. James Kugel providessources from Syria, Palestine, and Egypt that describe Pharaoh's helpers, and theBabylonian Talmud also refers to these helpers, who are identified as Balaam,Job, and Jethro. 5 The substitution of Balaam, Job, and Jethro with Haman andQariin in the Qur'an has received scholarly attention. 6In exploring Fir' awn's unique identity and biographical details, I would lilce tofocus on a single case study, namely the ~arb that Fir'awn ordered Haman tobuild. The nature and purpose of this !}arb have confounded scholars for centuries.The episode is described in two verses as follows:Qur'an 28:38: "Fir'awn said: '0 Haman! Light me a (kiln to bake bricks) outof clay, and build me a lofty ~arb, that I may ascend to the god of Moses:though I think (Moses) is a liar!'"2 Qur'an 40:36-7: ~'Fir'awn said: '0 Haman! Build me a lofty ~arb, that I mayreach the asbab- the asbab of the heavens, so that I may ascend to the god ofMoses: though I think (Moses) is a liar!'"There is nothing quite like this episode in the Bible's account of the Pharaohs. Weare told that Pharaoh built storage cities called Pithom and Ramses (Exodus 1:11),but lofty buildings that reach the heavens are not associated with any of the Bible'sPharaohs. However, a possible Biblical parallel occurs in Genesis 11: 1-9, where theTower ofBabel is described. The relevant passage is as follows (with my emphasis):Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words. And as theymigrated from the east, they came upon a valley in the land ofShinar [=Iraq]and settled there. They said to one another. "Come let us make bricks andbum them hard" - Brick served them as stone and bitumen served them asmortar. -And they said. "Come let us build us a city and a tower with its topin the sky. to make a name for ourselves: else we shall be scattered all overthe world." The Lord came down to look at the city and tower that man had4 Exodus 1:13.5 J. Kugel, The Bible As It Was, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1997,290-95, where the helpers are identified as "Jannes and Jambres;" and Babylonian Talmud, Sola!Ia, and Sanhedrin 106a.6 M. Schwarzbaum, Mi-maqor yisrae/ we yishmael, Tel Aviv: Don Press, 1975, 187; A. Silverstein,"Hiimiin's transition from the Jahiliyya to Islam," JSAI 34 (2008), 285-308.The Qur 'anic Pharaoh 469built, and the Lord said, "If, as one people with one language for all, this ishow they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will beout of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, sothat they shall not understand one another's speech." Thus the Lord scatteredthem from there over the face of the whole earth: and they stopped buildingthe city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confoundedthe speech of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them over theface of the whole earth.The link between Fir'awn's !}arb and the Tower of Babel has been highlighted byanti-Islamic polemicists for centuries. The first scholar to draw attention to theissue was Father Marraccio, confessor to Pope Irmocent XI, who published hisannotated translation of the Qur'an (into Latin) in the late seventeenth century. Incommenting on the !}arb, MarracCio states:Mahumet has mixed up Sacred Stories. He took Haman as an adviser ofPharaoh whereas in reality he was adviser of Ahasuerus, King of Persia. Healso thought that the Pharaoh ordered construction for him of a lofty towerfrom the top of which he could see the God of Moses which if true would beinferior to him. There is no doubt that he borrowed the story ·of this towerfrom the story of the Tower of Babel. It is certain that in the Sacred Scripturesthere is no such story of the Pharaoh. Be that as it may, [Mahumet] has relateda most incredible story. 7The identification of the ~arb with the Tower ofBabel has- with a few exceptions- been generally accepted by modem Western scholars, and is taken for grantedin the EJ2, 8 the EQ, 9 and in recent works by Wheeler, 10 Rubin, 11 and others. Theimplication that the Qur'an (or "Mahumet") has "mixed up Sacred Stories" hasunderstandably vexed modem Muslims and the internet is buzzing with websiteswhere it is argued against the identification of the ~arb with the Tower ofBabel. 127 A leo rani textus universus ex correctioribus Arabum exemplaribus summa fide, at que pulcherrimischaracteribus descriptus . . . eademque fide . . . ex Arabico idiomate in Latinum trans/a/us;appositis unicuique capiti notis a/que refittatione: his omnibus praemissus est Prodromus ...auctore Ludovico Marraccio, Padua: 1698, 526 n. I. The English translation is taken from S.M.Syed, "Historicity of Haman as mentioned in the Quran", Islamic Quarterly 24, 1980, ( 48-59) 51,where similar remarks by other Western scholars are quoted in full.8 G. Vajda and A. Wensinck, "Fir'awn," Ef-,2:917.9 N. Robinson, "Clay," EQ, 1:340-41.10 B.M. Wheeler, Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and i\rluslim Exegesis,London: Continuum, 2002, 188-89; idem., "Miisa" in 0. Leaman (ed.), The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia,London: Routledge, 2006, 432.II U. Rubin, Ha-Qur'an, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2005,316 (note ad28:38).12 E.g. . For an onlinerebuttal, see: (both websitesaccessed February 10, 2011).