So if an objector says: "What do you say regarding the verse of Labīd ibn Rabīʿa:
Until the passing of a year, then the name of Peace be upon you both ... and whoever responds with weeping for a full year has fulfilled his duty (1)
for a prominent scholar in the knowledge of the Arabic language interpreted it as meaning: 'Then peace be upon you both,' and that the name of peace is peace itself?" (2)
It is said to him: If that were permissible and its interpretation in it were correct according to what he interpreted, it would be permissible to say: "I saw the name of Zayd," "I ate the name of food," and "I drank the name of drink." In the Consensus of all the Arabs on the impossibility of that, there is that which informs of the invalidity of the interpretation of the one who interpreted Labīd's verse: "Then the name of Peace
Notes
- (1) His Dīwān, poem no. 21, and al-Khizāna 2: 217; then it comes later in the Tafsir of the verse of Sūrat al-Tawba: 90 (vol. 10, p. 144, Būlāq ed.), and the verse of Sūrat al-Raʿd: 35 (13: 109). The poet addresses his two daughters, as he said: "My two daughters wished that their father would live... yet am I anything but one from Rabīʿa or Muḍar!" Then he commanded them with his order, saying before the cited verse: "So stand and say what you both have known... and do not scratch a face nor shave hair. And say: He is the man who neither lost his close friend... nor betrayed a friend, nor acted deceitfully." So his saying "until the passing of a year..." (ilā al-ḥawli...) means: do that until a year passes. And al-ḥawl is the full, complete year. And his saying iʿtadhara here carries the meaning of aʿdhara: i.e., he reached the utmost limit of excuse.
- (2) This foremost scholar in the knowledge of the language of the Arabs is Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā, in his book Majāz al-Qurʾān: 16. He has indeed fallen between the jaws of a lion! And all that follows is a severe reprimand from Abū Jaʿfar to Abū ʿUbayda.
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