every verb, when it was after the verb connected to it, even though omitting its repetition is permissible.
Some of those who did not examine closely (1) have thought that the repetition of "Iyyāka" with "nastaʿīn", after its prior appearance in His statement: "Iyyāka nastaʿīn", is in the sense of the saying of ʿAdī ibn Zayd al-ʿIbādī:
And making the sun a boundary about which there is no obscurity,
Between the day and between the night He has separated. (2)
And like the saying of Aʿshā Hamdān:
Between al-Ashajj and between Qays there is a towering pride,
Bravo! Bravo for his father and for the newborn! (3)
And that on the part of its speaker is ignorance, because the property of "Iyyāka" is to be repeated with every verb, due to the cause we described earlier, while that is not the rule of "between" (bayna); for when it requires two things, it can only be repeated if reiterated, since it cannot apply to a single item alone. Furthermore, if it were attached to only one of the two names while requiring two, the speech would be impossible. That is because if a speaker were to say: "The sun has separated between the day," that would be corrupt speech (4) due to the deficiency of the speech in what it needs for its completeness as required by "between".
And if a speaker were to say: "O Allah, You we worship," that would be a complete statement. Thus it was known through this that the need of every word—that is analogous to "You we worship"—for "You" is like the need of
Notes
- (1) In the printed edition: "did not look closely", they substituted it, as they did on p. 55, note 3.
- (2) In al-Lisān (m-ṣ-r), attributed to Umayya ibn Abī al-Ṣalt. Ibn Bahrī corrected it and attributed it to ʿAdī ibn Zayd. Al-miṣr: the barrier and boundary between two things. He says: He made the sun a boundary and mark between night and day.
- (3) Dīwān al-Aʿshayayn: 323, and al-Aghānī 6:46, 61. Aʿshā Hamdān is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Hamdānī Abū Muṣbiḥ; he was one of the jurists and reciters, then he abandoned that and composed poetry. He praises ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ashʿath ibn Qays al-Kindī, who revolted against al-Ḥajjāj, so the jurists and reciters revolted with him. When al-Ḥajjāj captured al-Aʿshā, he said to him: "Are you not the one who said:"—and recited the verse to him—"By God, you shall never say bakh bakh after this!" and killed him. Al-Ashajj: he is al-Ashʿath, father of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Qays is his grandfather. Bakh bakh: a word of exaltation and praise. This verse and the one before it are textual proofs for the validity of repeating "between" (bayna), with other than attached pronouns, and there are many such examples. The people of our age consider anyone who says it to be in error, while they themselves are caught in the snare of error.
- (4) Al-khalaf (with fatḥa then sukūn): bad speech. It is said, "This is khalaf speech," i.e., bad. In the proverb: "He remained silent for a thousand and spoke khalaf," said of a man who prolongs silence, then when he speaks, he speaks in error. That is, he was silent for a long age, then spoke with error. He used "a thousand" as a metonymy for a long time, a thousand hours for instance.
This translation was produced with AI assistance and is part of an ongoing human-review process. Found a mistake? Use the feedback option in the reader menu.
