were only commanded to begin at the openings of their affairs with the naming of God, not by informing about His greatness and His attributes, like that which they were commanded of naming over slaughtered animals and Hunting, and when eating and drinking, and all their other actions. Likewise, that which they were commanded of naming Him upon opening the recitation of God's Revelation, and the beginnings of their letters and books.
And there is no disagreement among all the scholars of the Ummah that if a speaker were to say when slaughtering some cattle, (1) "By God" (Bi-Llāh), and did not say "In the name of God" (Bismi Allāh), he would be violating—by omitting the phrase "In the name of God"—what was instituted as Sunna for him to say at the time of slaughter. By this it is known that he did not intend by his phrase "In the name of God" to mean "By God", as was asserted by the one who claimed that God's name in God's statement: "In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful" is God Himself. For if it were as he claimed, it would be obligatory that the one saying "By God" when slaughtering his slaughtered animal would be saying what was instituted as Sunna for him to say over the slaughtered animal. In the Consensus of all that the speaker of that has omitted what was instituted as Sunna for him to say over his slaughtered animal—since he did not say "In the name of God"—there is clear Evidence of the invalidity of the Interpretation he claimed for the speaker's statement: "In the name of God", that what is intended by it is "By God", and that the name of God is God Himself.
And this place is not one of those places for elaborating extensively on clarifying the name: Is it the named itself, or other than it, or is it an attribute of it, such that we would lengthen the Book thereby? Rather, this place is one for clarifying the name that is annexed to God: Is it a noun, or a verbal noun in the sense of naming? (2)
Notes
- (1) Al-Tadhkiya: slaughtering and throat-slitting. Dhakkaytu al-shāta tadhkiyatan: I slaughtered the sheep.
- (2) Abū Jaʿfar, May God be pleased with him, deemed the best opinion for his argument to be excellent. What he wrote previously, and what comes after, is among the most upright of what has been said in explaining this place over which minds and pens have contended. And the clarification of what Abū Jaʿfar said is: Your saying ism (name) in Bismillāh (In the name of God) is merely a quasi-verbal noun (ism maṣdar) (or noun of event), i.e., it is originally a name for what you do when naming a thing, just as al-kalām (speech) is a noun of event for what you do when speaking (taklīm), and like al-ʿaṭāʾ (grant) is a noun of event for what you do when giving (iʿṭāʾ), and like al-ghusl (washing) is a noun of event for what you do when bathing (ightisāl). It is as if its origin is from your saying samawtu al-shay'a samwwan (I elevated/named the thing), so they abandoned its triliteral verb while its verbal noun samw remained, so they omitted its final wāw, making it sam, and compensated for it with an alif at its beginning, making it ism, just as your saying kalām is from a triliteral verb which is kallama kalāman, following the pattern of dhahaba dhahāban, so they abandoned the triliteral verb while its verbal noun kalām remained, making it a noun of event for what you do when speaking (taklīm), then they derived the verbal noun of the quadriliteral verb on the pattern of this noun of event, so they said: kallama yukallimu kalāman, in the sense of kallama yukallimu taklīman.
Likewise, they did in their saying sammā yusammī tasmiyatan: they derived for this quadriliteral verb a verbal noun on the pattern of the noun of event, which is ism, so they said: sammā yusammī isman, meaning sammā yusammī tasmiyatan. So your saying kalām in the sense of taklīm, and your saying ism in the sense of tasmiya were formed on the patterns of nouns of events. Therefore, what is annexed to His Name, Exalted be He, in your saying Bismillāh and its likes, is merely a verbal noun derived on the pattern of a noun of event, which is ism, from a quadriliteral verb which is , so it bears the meaning of its verbal noun, which is . In this place and its likes, it bears the meaning of the verbal noun , not the meaning of the noun of event for what you do when naming. (See: 123–124, al-Ṭabarī's commentary on ).
And this which Abū Jaʿfar, May God be pleased with him, stated is the most brilliant thing said in explaining this word from the speech of the Arabs. He exercised fine and precise investigation, to the extent that it remained hidden from the eminent scholars who spoke on the explanation of the meaning of in and its likes; they overlooked it entirely due to its subtlety and difficulty of access, and because of their familiarity with speaking on what they opened with regarding "the name ()": is it the named () or other than it, or is it an attribute of it, and what is its definition and boundary? This is a topic different from the one we are in, so they confused things in it. Then al-Ṭabarī came and thoroughly clarified the truth, and it is the most sound of opinions in our view and the most deserving of precedence for whoever is granted the success to understand it, as Abū Jaʿfar, may Allah forgive him, says. He will mention after this further evidence that increases the clarity and explanation of the meaning. Were it not for fear of lengthiness, I would have brought the evidences for preferring al-Ṭabarī's opinion—which they overlooked—over every opinion that preceded or came after it.
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