Perfect Word Choice in Qur’an – 3 الإطناب

As mentioned in the post linked, Allah swt often uses “extra” words to describe the same thing, this may be called Periphrases in English, in Arabic we call this إطناب and it has many functions and some types,

An example is in the Ayat below, so lets contemplate on this,

Allah swt says in Surah Nuh (aya 28) 

(My Lord, forgive me and my parents and whoever enters my house a believer and the believing men and believing women…….)

Contemplation….

If we look, by mentioning “who ever enters my house” the need for mentioning “my parents” becomes redundant, or by mentioning “believer” makes who ever enters my house is redundant, or by mentioning “believing men and believing women” the use of “believer” seems as mentioned extra, because Allah swt could have mentioned in this Ayat, “forgive all the believers” (some thing common among all),

We ask our selves, why does he mention the extra words specifying, when in the end he mentions forgive “all the believers”

Well, that is the discussion,

This type of sentence is called اطناب as there is excess of words to describe the same thing, well the question we have to ask ourselves is, why is this so..

If we look closely we see that Allah swt mentions our Parents (separately) to give the respect that they deserve from us, their status is elevated, their position in the Dua that we may ask is elevated..

The second point to remember is that, if we concentrate on the word placement, in this ayah we notice that in the Dua we ask for our forgiveness first (this is to be kind to ourselves) and then we should be mentioning our parents (they are the next in our life closest to us, more deserving of our dua) then we mention those entering our homes, (this may be our siblings our friends, our children) and then we ask for the rest in the same order,

Subhanallah although the words may seem as if they are used as “extra” so much meaning can be taken from them when we ponder..

May Allah swt make us respect our parents and we ask him to teach us the etiquette of asking from him

Lost in Translation – 6

In the name of Allah the extremely merciful

And she certainly determined [to seduce] him, and he would have inclined to her had he not seen the proof of his Lord. And thus [it was] that We should avert from him evil and immorality. Indeed, he was of Our chosen servants.

 

Assalamualaikum Warehmatullah 

In Arabic rhetoric there are a few types of conditional sentences, I want to explain a few examples first to make it easy to understand the hidden beauty in the Ayat mentioned above… In’Sha’Allah (Allah willing),

Sentence example – 1

Imagine I invite you to my house for food!, and I cook the best food for you, but you don’t show up, so I eat the food on my own, the next day when I see you, I say to you,

“If you had come to my house you would most certainly have had the best food ever”

 

There is one condition attached here, a) if you had come
There is also one result attached to the condition b) you would certainly have had food
Notice that in the above sentence neither of these things happened,

• you didn’t come
• and you didn’t have food,

A point to note here is also that the word “certainly” appears with the second part (result of condition) of the sentence, this is the preferred way for this type of sentence

Sentence example – 2

Now imagine on some other day and this time in your house, I see a cake, I think I will eat in five minutes (with your permission of course) I look outside at your lovely garden and when I look back.. I see that you have already eaten the cake! I say to you;

“I would have certainly eaten the cake if you hadn’t finished it”!

There is one condition attached here a) If you hadn’t eaten it

There is also one result here as well b) I would have certainly eaten it,

In this example one thing happened and the other didn’t,

• You ate it
• I didn’t eat it

In what didn’t happen we again notice two things
first, what didn’t happen is called the “result” and
second, it had the word “certainly” attached, giving it emphasis,

This is the basic rule for sentences where the result doesn’t happen

 

Now let’s go back to the original Ayah (verse), and the beauty I wanted to explain in as simple terms as possible

We are told the story of Yusuf a.s (joseph peace be upon him) in the Qur’an, and how the wife of Aziz had tried to seduce him…

Allah swt says in Surah Yusuf ayat 24

 

 

“……….and he would have inclined to her had he not seen the proof of his Lord……..”

 

The same ayat can be translated in the keeping the pattern of sentence -2 above in mind as;
Condition: If he had not seen the proof of his Lord,       Result: He would (Certainly) have felt inclined

Notice the beauty here, Allah swt is mentioning a few things here, and I will only stick to the superficial explanation of only a part of this ayat

1)       Because Prophet Yusuf a.s was aware of his Lord, he didn’t incline to commit the sin,

2)       Notice that the word here for the action “as in فعل”   is not used, but a word for inclination is used, meaning that Yusuf a.s didn’t even incline towards something of a sin, if it were us, and lets say the best among us hadn’t committed an act, we still would have had the “inclination” to commit an act!, SubhanAllah, that Yusuf a.s didn’t even have this

3)       Notice that in all the “result” part of the sentence the word (Certainly) is used… this is done in Arabic with these type of condition sentence with a (ل), but I am amazed to notice that Allah swt doesn’t use this here, I wondered why, and then figured, SubhanAllah, Allah hasn’t used this to take the word (Certainly) out of the inclination of Yusuf a.s thus rendering him absolutely innocent, Because if (ل) – (certainly) had been used, it would have said he would have (certainly) felt inclined!

SubhanAllah how can one think that this Qur’an has been written by a man, its depth in Arabic is in need of understanding, we need to lift this miracle off the book shelves and read and ponder at each ayat…. In’Sha’Allah