about it, and that it was clear to them. That is one of the aspects of his error.

The second aspect of his error in that is his attributing to Allah—may His praise be exalted—that He addressed His servants with that in which there is no benefit for them and no meaning, being speech wherein addressing them with it or omitting it are equal. That is attributing futility—which according to all monotheists is negated regarding Allah—to Allah, exalted be His mention.

The third aspect of his error is that bal in the speech of the Arabs has a known Interpretation and meaning, and that they introduce it into their speech as a departure from speech that has passed, such as their saying: "Your brother did not come to me, bal (rather) your father," and "I did not see ʿAmr, bal (rather) ʿAbd Allāh," and similar speech, as al-Aʿshā of Banū Thaʿlaba said:

And I shall certainly drink eight and eight ... and thirteen, two, and four

And he continued in his poem until he reached his saying:

With wild thyme, while his sleeves are fragrant ... playing the lute for me as the finger turns

Then he said:

Bal (rather), turn away from this into other poetry ... and mention a generous, splendid youth

As if he said: "Leave this and take to other poetry." Thus, bal occurs in the speech of the Arabs only in this manner of speech; as for using it as an opening to begin speech in the sense of redundancy and omission, without indicating a meaning, that is something we know no one among the people of knowledge of the Arabic language and speech has claimed except the one whose statement I mentioned. Thus, were it an established Root/Principle to which the letters of the alphabet—which are the openings of the Qur'anic surahs—could be compared if they were similar to it, how could it be so when they are far from being similar to it?

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