Discourse on the Interpretation of

{In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful}

Discourse on the Interpretation of His statement: {In the name of}.

Abū Jaʿfar said: Indeed God—exalted be His mention and sanctified be His names—disciplined His Prophet Muḥammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him, by teaching him to place the mention of His Beautiful Names before all of his actions, and instructed him to describe Him by them prior to all of his important matters (1), and made what He disciplined and taught him in this regard a Sunna for all His creation to follow (2), and a path for them to pursue. Thus through it is the opening of the beginnings of their speech (3), and the prologues of their epistles, books, and needs, such that the indication of what is apparent in a speaker's saying, "In the name of Allah," renders unnecessary [the explicit mention of] what is hidden of his intention, which is omitted.

And that is because the bāʾ in "In the name of Allah" requires a verb to govern it, while there is no explicit verb accompanying it. Thus, the listener's knowledge of the speaker's intention when he says "In the name of Allah" dispenses with the speaker having to state his intention verbally, since every speaker who pronounces it upon embarking on a matter brings forth in his utterance—either alongside it or immediately preceding it—that which spares his listener the need for an external indication pointing to the reason for which he opened his speech with it (4). Thus, the listener's ability to dispense with the explicit statement of what was omitted from it is analogous to his ability to dispense—when hearing someone asked, "What did you eat today?" and replying, "Food"—with the person asked repeating "I ate" along with his saying "Food," because of the clear indication already present before him that such is his meaning (5), due to the preceding question asking him about what he ate. It is intelligible, therefore, that the saying of