inflected with its inflection, so that mutadārakin would be grammatically referred back to it. However, since it was preceded by a verb negated by lan that indicates the required meaning in the speech for what was omitted (1), the indication of what was explicit rendered the explicit mention of what was omitted unnecessary, and he treated the speech in meaning and inflection as if what was omitted from it were explicitly present (2). For his statement: 'Is it truly that you will never see at Thuʿaylibāt' is in the sense of: "Is it truly that you are not seeing," so he referred mutadārakin back to the grammatical position of tarā (see), as though lasta (you are not) and the preposition bi- were present in the speech. Likewise, His statement: "And when your Lord said," since God's reminding those addressed of His past favors and bounties toward them and their forefathers preceded it, and His statement: "And when your Lord said to the angels"—along with what follows it of the favors He enumerated to them and alerted them to their significance—referred idh back to the grammatical position of {when you were dead and He gave you life}. For the meaning of that is: Remember these of My favors, and this regarding which I said to the angels. So when the first phrase implied idh, He joined with idh onto its position in the first (3).

---

The discourse regarding the interpretation of His statement: ﴿to the angels﴾

Abū Jaʿfar said: And al-malāʾika (the angels) is the plural of malʾak, except that referring to one of them (5) without the hamza (malak) is more frequent and well-known in the speech of the Arabs than with the hamza. That is because they say for their singular: malak (angel) from