Abū Jaʿfar said: Some inattentive people have thought that this is an instance of placing earlier that which is meant to be later, as Imruʾ al-Qays said:

And if that for which I strive were for a bare minimum of subsistence, A little wealth would have sufficed me, and I would not seek [more]. (1)

He means by this: "A little wealth would have sufficed me, and I would not seek much." But this—with respect to the concept of transposition and resemblance to the verse of Imruʾ al-Qays—is far off. That is because a little wealth may suffice a person while he still seeks much, so the existence of what suffices him does not necessitate his leaving off the pursuit of much, such that it would be comparable to worship, with whose existence comes the existence of assistance upon it, and with the existence of assistance upon it comes its existence, so that mentioning one of them points to the other, making it equal in the correctness of speech to place whichever of them was placed first before its counterpart, as being placed in its degree and arranged in its rank.

If someone says: What is the reason for repeating "You" with His statement: "we ask for help", when it was already mentioned before "we worship"? Why was it not said: "You we worship and ask for help," since the One reported to be worshipped is the very One reported to be asked for help?

It is said to him: The kāf attached to iyyā is the kāf that would connect directly to the verb—meaning in His statement: "we worship"—had it been placed after the verb. It is the pronoun representing the addressee in the accusative case acted upon by the verb, so it was lengthened with iyyā when placed first, since nouns, when standing independently, do not consist of a single letter in the speech of the Arabs.

So since the kāf of "Iyyāka" was the pronoun representing the addressee which would have been a single kāf attached to the verb had it come after the verb, and its rule was to be repeated with every verb to which it attached—such that one says: "O Allah, we worship You, we ask You for help, we praise You, and we thank You," which was more eloquent in the speech of the Arabs than saying: "O Allah, we worship You, ask for help, and praise"—likewise, when the pronoun representing the addressee was placed before the verb connected with iyyā, the most eloquent style was to repeat it with