that we have described, shall be asked for proof of his claim, from a perspective that must be accepted. Then he shall be confronted with the statement of his opponent regarding that, and asked for the difference between his position and theirs: based on a Root/Principle, or what a Root/Principle indicates. He will not make any statement regarding one of them without being bound to the same in the other.

As for the grammarian who claimed that this is analogous to bal in the words of the poet:

Bal—what aroused sorrows and grief that was grieved

and that it has no meaning, but is merely an addition to speech whose meaning is discarding—he has erred from several aspects:

One of them is that he described Allah—exalted be His mention—as addressing the Arabs in a language other than their own, and other than the language of any human being. For although the Arabs used to open the beginnings of their poetry recitations with bal, it is well known that they did not begin any speech with Alif-Lām-Mīm, Alif-Lām-Rā, or Alif-Lām-Mīm-Ṣād in the sense of their beginning speech with bal. Since that was not among their ways of opening speech, and Allah—may His praise be exalted—addressed them in the Qur'an only through what they knew in their languages and used among themselves in their speech throughout all its verses, there is no doubt that the path of the letters of the alphabet that we have described—which were used as openings for the surahs they open—is the path of the rest of the Qur'an, in that He did not depart with them from their languages that they knew and used among themselves in their speech. For if that had departed from the path of their languages and speech, it would have been outside the meaning of clear clarification by which Allah—mighty and majestic—described the Qur'an, when He—exalted be His mention—said: {The Trustworthy Spirit brought it down * Upon your heart, that you may be of the warners * In a clear Arabic tongue}. And how could that be clear which no one in the world understands or comprehends according to the statement of the proponent of this view, nor is it known in the speech of any created being according to his statement? In the report of Allah—may His praise be exalted—that it is clear Arabic, there is that which refutes this statement and informs that the Arabs were knowledgeable