{In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} from the Opening of the Book is a verse—such that a questioner would have an issue for us, saying: What is the reason for repeating that in this place, when Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has already described Himself with it in His statement {In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful}, given the proximity of one of the two verses to the other and its adjacency to its companion? Rather, that is proof for us against the error of the claim of whoever claimed that {In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} from the Opening of the Book is a verse. For if that were the case, it would be the repetition of a verse with one meaning and one wording twice without any separation dividing between them. And there does not exist in anything of the Book of Allah two adjacent, repeated verses with one wording and one meaning, with no separation between them of speech whose meaning differs from their meaning. Indeed, a whole verse is only brought as a repetition in a single surah with separations dividing between that, and speech that intervenes in the meaning of the repeated verses or other than their wordings, whereas there is no separation between the statement of Allah, Blessed be His Name, {The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} in {In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful}, and the statement of Allah: {The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} in {Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds}.

If he says: Then {Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds} is a separator from that. (1)

It is said: A group of the scholars of interpretation rejected that, and they said: This is among that which is placed later while its meaning is placed earlier, and it is only: Praise be to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, Lord of the worlds, Sovereign of the Day of Recompense. And they cited as evidence for the correctness of what they claimed His statement: "Sovereign of the Day of Recompense", and they said: His statement "Sovereign of the Day of Recompense" is an instruction from Allah to His servant to describe Him with sovereignty in the recitation of whoever recites Malik (Sovereign), and with ownership in the recitation of whoever recites Mālik (Owner). They said: So that which is more worthy of being adjacent to His description of sovereignty or ownership is that which is identical to that description; and that is His statement: "Lord of the worlds", which is an announcement of His ownership of all species of creation; and that adjacent to His description of greatness and divinity should be that which is identical to it in meaning of praise upon Him, and that is His statement: {The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful}.

So they claimed that this is evidence for them that His statement {The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful} is in the sense of being placed before "Lord of the worlds", even if it appears later in outward form. And they said: The counterparts of this—of placing earlier what is in meaning placed later, and placing later what is in meaning placed earlier—in the speech of the Arabs are more widespread and more frequent in their speech than can be counted. Among that is the statement of Jarīr ibn ʿAṭiyya: