a surah among them needed to add to its named title that which enables the listener to distinguish between news of it and news of others, such as an epithet, a description, or otherwise. He who reports about himself that he recited Sūrat al-Baqara would say, when naming it by its name which is "Alif Lām Mīm": "I recited 'Alif Lām Mīm al-Baqara,'" and in Āl ʿImrān: "I recited 'Alif Lām Mīm Āl ʿImrān,'" and "Alif Lām Mīm, that is the Book," and "Alif Lām Mīm, Allah—there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of existence." Just as if he wished to report about two men, each named "ʿAmr," except that one is Tamīmī and the other Azdī, he would be obliged to say to the one he wished to inform about them: "I met ʿAmr al-Tamīmī and ʿAmr al-Azdī," since he could not distinguish between them and others who share their names except by attributing them in this way. Thus is the case according to the statement of those who interpret the abbreviated letters as being names of the surahs.

As for those who said: "These are openings with which Allah, Mighty and Majestic, opens His speech," they oriented that toward a meaning similar to what we recounted from the grammarians whom we quoted, who said: These are indications of the end of one surah and the beginning of another, and a mark of the break between them, just as "nay (bal)" is placed at the beginning of a poem to indicate the beginning of it and the end of another before it, as we mentioned regarding the Arabs when they wished to begin reciting a poem, saying: Nay * what stirred up sorrows and grief that grieved... And "nay (bal)" is not part of the verse nor included in its meter, but rather to indicate thereby the ending of one speech and the beginning of another.

As for those who said: "These are disjoined letters, some of which are from the names of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and some from His attributes, and each letter among them has a meaning distinct from the meaning of another letter," they directed their interpretation toward the statement of the poet: We said to her, "Stop for us," she said, "Qāf." Do not think that we have forgotten the rapid galloping. (1)