[Oh, would that we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger]. The words [the Messenger (al-Rasula)] and [the way (al-sabila)] were used with the alif because they are at the end of a verse (fasila), and this is permissible in the speech of the Arabs when it is at the end of a pause.

Muhammad said: The preferred choice among the scholars of Arabic is (al-sabila) with the alif, and to pause upon it, because the endings of the verses and their demarcations follow the same rules as the endings of lines of poetry and their hemistichs. For the Arabs were addressed in a manner they understood within structured speech, so the pause upon these things—along with the addition of letters like in [the assumptions (al-zununa)], [the way (al-sabila)], and [the Messenger (al-rasula)]—indicates that the speech has been completed and terminated, and that what follows it is a new beginning.