Was Pharaoh Drowned or Saved?
Allah says in the Quran that He drowned Pharaoh and his hosts in the sea, after Moses performed the miracle of splitting it apart by His will:
And he wished to scare them from the land, but We drowned him and those with him, all together.
17:103
Therefor We seized him and his hosts, and abandoned them unto the sea. Behold the nature of the consequence for evil-doers!
28:40
So, when they angered Us, We punished them and drowned them every one.
43:55
But in another verse that may seem contradictory, Allah says that He saved Pharaoh from drowning:
And We brought the Children of Israel across the sea, and Pharaoh with his hosts pursued them in rebellion and transgression, till, when the (fate of) drowning overtook him, he exclaimed: "I believe that there is no Allah save Him in Whom the Children of Israel believe, and I am of those who surrender (unto Him)." What? Now? When hitherto thou hast rebelled and been of the wrong-doers? But this day We save thee in thy body that thou mayst be a portent for those after thee. Lo! Most of mankind are heedless of Our portents.
10:90-92
Replying to this; the fact that Pharaoh and his hosts drowned is certain, beyond a doubt. They died as a result of this drowning, as stated by the above verses, however, those three aforementioned verses don't explain what happened to the body after it drowned, so 10:92 explains the saving event in detail. It's clear that the mention of "in thy body," means clearly that it's the lifeless body of Pharaoh that was saved from drowning, not Pharaoh himself.
Now logically; is everyone who drown in the sea get eaten by sharks, or are their bodies lost in the bottom of the sea, or is it possible that they could drown, then their bodies may float and be saved from disintegrating or being lost? The answer is definitely the latter since that's what we see in the case of those who drown as a result of plane crashes over the sea, shipwrecks, etc., and this is exactly what happened in the case of Pharaoh; he died by drowning in the sea, then Allah caused his body to float on the surface of the sea, so that the Children of Israel could be certain that he had died, putting an end to the fear in the hearts of persecuted people who may have believed that he had gone away in order to return after some time.
Therefore, what was meant by "saving his body" was definitely not "saving him from death"; rather, Allah saved his body from being lost at the bottom of the sea, or being eaten by sea creatures. The commentaries of the Quran give valuable linguistic openings about verse 10:92:
Ibn Abbas and other people from the Salaf said that some people among the Children of Israel doubted about the death of Pharaoh. So, Allah ordered the sea to project his untouched lifeless body bearing his well-known shield on a Najwah (نجوة), a piece of land that juts out, in order that they know for sure that Pharaoh died. Therefore, Falyawma Nunajjīka (فَٱلْيَوْمَ نُنَجِّيكَ) in the verse contextually means "this day shall We raise you on a bulge." Bibadanika (بِبَدَنِكَ) means "in your body," according to Mujahid, while Al-Hasan said "in a lifeless body," and Abdullah ibn Shadad said "in an untouched body with no torn limbs so that he could be identified," whereas Abu Sakhr explained it as "with your shield."
Tafsir ibn Kathir (10:92)
Such various accounts with very similar narrations are quoted in many other commentaries (such as that of al-Qurtubi and al-Tabari). This Tafsir book says that it was the lifeless body of Pharaoh wearing his shield that was projected on a bulge, a high land that's not covered by the flood for everyone to check that he really died, doing so thanks to his famous shield, or because his lifeless body was not torn after he was drowned. If we stick to the linguistic alternatives highlighted by the commentary, we would translate verse 10:92 as: "This day shall We project and save your lifeless body with your shield on a bulge in order that you may be a sign to those who come after you."
Of course, it's worthwhile to check the various meanings of the word Badan (بَدَنْ), which was used in the verse to mean "body" or "shield," in a good and famous Arabic lexicon:
*Badan* (بَدَنْ) means "body," as well as "shield." Some narrators said that it means any shield generally, and others said that it means a small shield, more specifically.
Ibn Manzur - Lisān al-'Arab (Badan (بدن))
Even more interestingly, the lexicon actually quotes verse 10:92 (for both this entry and the term Najwah, which we talked about earlier) and quotes additional narratives supporting what's in the Quranic commentaries.
Therefore, the verses clearly say that Pharaoh was drowned, but his body was preserved after his death by drowning as a sign for mankind. The act of "saving" is not implying that Allah saved Pharaoh from drowning, in fact, it says that He saved his drowned corpse from getting lost.