As for the other aspect, it is that the meaning of the statement is: Indeed, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable of what is between a gnat to what is above it. Then the mention of "between" (bayna) and "to" (ilā) was omitted, since the accusative case of "a gnat" and the entry of the fāʾ into the second mā serve as an indication of both of them, just as the Arabs say: "We were rained upon from Zubāla to al-Thaʿlabiyya," and "He has twenty, from a she-camel to a male camel," and "She is the most beautiful of people from head to toe," meaning: what is between her hair-braid to her foot (1). Likewise, they say in every statement where it is appropriate to insert "what is between such-and-such to such-and-such": they put both the first and second in the accusative case, so that the accusative case in both indicates what was omitted from the statement (2). So it is likewise in His statement: "what is a gnat and what is above it" (3).

Some of the grammarians claimed that the mā that accompanies "parable" (mathal) is an extra word (ṣila) in the speech in the sense of stylistic extension (4), and that the meaning of the statement is: Indeed, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a gnat as a parable, or what is above it. According to this interpretation, "a gnat" (baʿūḍatan) must be in the accusative case governed by "sets forth" (yaḍriba), and the second mā in "or what is above it" (fa-mā fawqahā) is conjoined to "a gnat", not to mā.

As for the interpretation of His statement, "or what is above it": it means what is larger than it (5)—in my view—because of what we mentioned before from the statement of Qatāda and Ibn Jurayj that the gnat is the weakest of Allah's creation. So since it is the weakest of Allah's creation, it is the ultimate limit in smallness and weakness. And since it is so, there is no doubt that what is above the weakest of things can only be stronger than it. Thus, the meaning must be—