Maisonneuve & Larose

The Grammar of Sūratu 'l-Ikhlāṣ

Author(s): Edwin E. Calverley
Source: Studia Islamica, No. 8 (1957), pp. 5-14
Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose
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 THEGRAMMAR
OF SURATU'L-IKHIAS

In the Qur'an there is one sarah or chapter which has

pre-eminence over every other surah. This is Suralu 'l-Ikhlas.
Its four or, as some say, five verses are so vitally important in
content that accepted Muslim traditions declare that these
few verses are equal, in recital-worth, to a third of the whole
Qur'an, which has six thousand two hundred verses, or more.
The majority of Muslim scholars through the centuries have
accepted one hundred and fourteen as the number of surahs
in the Qur'an, with Suratu 'l-Ikhlas as the Hundred and
Twelfth. Some few scholars, by reckoning two surahs as one,
reduce the total to one hundred and thirteen. Different
traditionalists reported different combinations to produce the
smaller total, just as Islamic scholars, by different principles of
counting and different divisions of the words in the chapters,
reach different totals for the numbers of the words in the
verses, verses in the surahs and surahs in the Book. There
has always been considerable freedom, not to say license, for
Muslim scholars in dealing with the text of their sacred Scripture.
Both the higher and the lower kinds of criticism are recognized
branches of Quranic science. The actual giving of numbers
to the surahs and their verses in printed editions of the Qur'an
is a recently adopted practice. The official Egyptian govern-
ment edition followed its own method of enumeration, placing
the figures at the beginning of the surahs and at the end of the
verses.
Just as the many authoritative variant readings of the
Quranic text do not decrease its validity as divine Scripture,
so the different enumerations of the words, verses and surahs

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6 EDWIN E. CALVERLEY

are all acceptable because, not the original text, but the bases
of the counting varied.
Abi 'I-Qasim Mahmud al-Zamakhshari (467/1075-538/1144)
was a Persian who became a very great Arabic scholar, excelling
in grammar and lexicography. He was a Mu'tazill, giving
human reasoning an authoritative place in his conclusions about
the Qur'an and Islam. In al-Kashshdf, his learned Commen-
tary, he states his reasons for the equality of Suratu 'l-Ikhlds
with the whole of the Qur'an in worth. But Fakhr al-Din
al-Razi (A. D. 1149-1210) in his Commentary Mafatlhu 'I-Ghayb,
quoted authoritative, that is, accepted traditions which limited
the value of the Surah to a third of the whole Qur'an. Then
'Abdullah bin 'Umar al-Baydawi (d. A. H. 685/A. D. 1286),
whose Commentary, Anwaru 'l-Tanzil, is a revision of al-
Kashshdf through the removal of nearly all of its Mu'tazill
bias, also quoted the same specific traditions that limited the
recital value of the Sarah but mentioned also the greater
estimate and added another tradition which says that those
who recite it in their performance of the Worship will have
their entrance into the Garden as an obligatory reward.
The vital importance of the Surah in Islam is further indicated
by the fact that the great Hanball theologian, Taqi al-Din
Ibn Taymiyyah (661/1263-728/1328) devoted a book of 140 pages
to its exposition.
Egypt's great Islamic scholar, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuiit (849/
1445-911/1505), in his invaluable but still untranslated book on
Qur'an Introduction, al-Itqan fa 'Ulimi 'I-Qur'an, is content
with quoting the same traditions that affirm the worth of this
second shortest surah of the Qur'an.
The Surah has a number of names, the most common of
which is Saratu 'l-Ikhlds (The Chapter of Pure Belief). Al-RazI
lists twenty titles for the Surah, while Shihab al-Din, in his
splendid super-commentary on al-Baydawi's Anwdru 'I-Tanzil,
mentions only four. He mentions, however, that the name
al-Ikhlds is used to express the doctrine of Allah's Oneness.
The most recently published translation of the Qur'an in
English, that by N. J. Dawood, uses the title : The Unity, for
the Surah.

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 THE GRAMMAR OF 8URATU 'L-IKHLAS 7

After the Basmalah, the first word of the Sarah is Qul,

"Say!". This is the first word of five other surahs, as
follows: 8, 72, 109, 113 and 114.
A number of Qur'an commentaries, and al-Suyui.t's al-Ilqan
as well, quote traditions which say that the authoritative
Reciters, Ubay bin Malik and Ibn Mas'id, omitted the word
qul, but the commentators nevertheless place it at the beginning
of Suralu 'l-Ikhlas because it is the well known reading.
This word qul, "Say," occurs altogether 332 times in the
Qur'an, which abundance of occurrence has supported the
Muslims in their universally accepted doctrine of the divine
origin of their sacred Book. There are some verses in the
Qur'an which traditions affirm to be statements made by
'Umar bin al-Khattab and other Muslims, as well as declarations
made by Gabriel and other angels. These non-prophetic
quotations are explained as verses which Muhammad was
instructed to include in the Revelation by the word qul " Say "
which is implied where it is not expressed. The whole subject
is included in al-Suyiuti's discussion in Chapters Ten and Fifteen
of Book I of al-Ilqdn, which deal with the Secondary Causes
and Occasions of the Revelation of the Qur'an Verses.
After qul, " Say, " the next word is huwa, " It, " or " He.
About this word, as the two alternative translations into
English indicate, there are differences of opinion among Muslim
scholars, and consequently much discussion. Some commen-
tators, such as al-Tabari (224/838-310/923), whose Commentary,
al-Tafsir, is the first on the whole Qur'an, take the pronoun
huwa to be the subject of a sentence, with the following word,
Allah, as its predicate. The meaning would then be, " He is
Allah, " with the following word, 'ahadun,"One, " as a second,
appositional, predicate. This interpretation of the grammar of
the sentence takes the three words to mean, " He is Allah,
One " and the verse has so been rendered by some translators.
The Arabic commentators who accept this interpretation,
recognizing that the best rhetoric requires that a pronoun should
have an antecedent, explain the pronoun here by saying that
" He " refers to an antecedent which is understood. It is
declared that the sentence is the answer to a question addressed

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8 EDWIN E. CALVERLEY

to Muhammad. At least two are recorded. Al-TabarI men-

tions both of them. He first quotes a tradition which says,
" Unbelievers asked Muhammad, 'What is the lineage, nasab,
of the Lord of Glory'?" Then he quotes another tradition,
that Jews said, "This Allah created the Universe, but who
created Allah ?" The Sarah is the reply dictated to Muham-
mad in answer to either question. A notable Persian rheto-
rician, 'Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani (d. 471/1078?), in his Dald'ilu
'l-I'jdz (Evidences of the Eloquence [of the Qur'an]), accepts
that same grammatical explanation of the sentence.
Al-Zamakhshari, however, both in his Commentary, already
mentioned, and in his Grammar, al-Mufassal, flatly declares
that huwa is a "pronoun of the fact. " The Grammar is
exceedingly well regarded in the East, and so highly valued in
the West that both al-Mufassal and its Commentary by Ibn
Ya'ish have been edited and translated by European scholars.
Al-Zamakhshari's pronouncement is the one generally, but not
exclusively, adopted by later Muslim scholars. It has not
been widely accepted by Western translators of the Qur'an,
and only in recent years by the present writer, which is why
this article is here presented.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, in his Commentary, discusses fully
the grammatical treatments of the verse. He first mentions
the explanation that huwa is a pronoun, with the noun " Allah "
in apposition to huwa, also in the nominative case. Ahadun,
One, " is the predicate of the sentence and is also in the
nominative case. He quotes the frequently used grammatical
example, Zaidun, akhuka, qa'imun (" Zaid, your brother, is
standing. ") This interpretation of the grammar of the verse
requires it to be rendered, " He, Allah, is One. "
This is the grammatical explanation of the sentence that is
accepted by Islam's Master Mystic, Muhyi 'l-Din Ibn 'Arabi in
his Commentary on the Qur'an.
Grammatically considered, this rendering is certainly possible,
because it makes the verse to be a nominal declarative sentence
with a definite subject preceding an indefinite predicate, which
is what such a sentence should have unless its predicate is in

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 THE GRAMMAR OF SURATU 'L-IKHLA9 9

two words or one word containing two ideas, in which cases

the predicate may be definite.
However, the rhetoric of the sentence thus rendered has the
objection that the pronoun which is the real subject precedes
its logical antecedent. Since the best rhetoric, which is the
only kind to be found in the Qur'an, as all Muslims must believe,
has pronouns follow their antecedents, expressed or implied,
and, further, in this case there is no preceding substantive noun,
even though one is immediately supplied in the Quranic text,
traditions were found to explain the verse as the answer to the
questions of polytheists or Jews, as has already been mentioned.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's Commentary next presents al-
Zamakhshari's explanation, that huwa is "a pronoun of the
fact, " (kindyah ' ani 'I-sha'ni). Other terms for this type of
pronoun are damiru 'I-amri, strictly," the pronoun of the thing,"
and damiru 'I-maijhli, "the pronoun of that which is unknown,
which is the term preferred by the grammarians of al-Kifah,
and damiru 'l-qissati, " the pronoun of the case. " This last
term is used when the logical antecedent is, in Arabic, in the
feminine gender. Thus understood, the pronoun is to be
rendered as "it, " and so the verse is to be rendered, It, i.e.,
the fact, or " the thing, ' or " that which is unknown, is,
Allah is One. "
Al-Razi quotes a third grammatical interpretation of the
verse, that by al-Zajjaj, who is probably Abu Ishaq Ibrahim
ibn Sahl ibn al-Sari al-Zajjaj (d. A.H. 310). Al-Zajjaj said:
"The assumption of this verse is: 'This, about which you asked,
is, He is Allah, One.'" Al-Razi makes no comment on this
explanation, but it is the one used by al-Suy.uti in his part of
the Tafsir al-Jalalayn. There are two objections to rendering
the verse as, " He is Allah, One. " The first is that the pronoun
is without an expressed antecedent and the second is that it
takes the indefinite " One " as an appositive, " Allah, " which is
definite.
As stated, it is al-Zamakhshari's interpretation of the grammar
of the verse that has won the acceptance of the Muslim commen-
tators. It is the explanation given first place by al-Baydawi,
which is his usual way of indicating his own preference. He

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10 EDWIN E. CALVERLEY

mentions the other interpretations, adding to al-Razl's third,

that " One, " ahadun, may be a second predicate to " He,
huwa. Shihab al-DIn, the author of the one of the numerous
super-commentaries on Anwar al-Tanzil which pays great
attention to grammatical problems of the Qur'an, defends the
statement that huwa is a pronoun of the fact, in opposition to
al-Jurjani's Dald'il al-I'jaz.
Another super-commentary on al-Baydawi's, that by
Muhammad Muhyl 'I-Din Shaykh Zadah, supporting the
pronoun of the fact interpretation of the verse, states that
grammarians disallow an indefinite noun to be an appositive,
badal, of a definite noun.
Al-Razi's Commentary next discusses the word ahad, " One.
Philologically it is derived from wahad, with wdw " w ", changed
to alif, " ", as a lighter consonant, a common practice. In
meaning, however, the two forms, wdhid and 'ahad are not
synonymous, because 'ahad is one of the attributes of Allah,
belonging exclusively to Him. It is this aspect of the word
that al-Razi discusses most fully, both here and in his comment
on Surah II, verse 163, Ildhukum ildhun wdhidun, "Your
God is One God. " Al-Razi states that Christians claim that
their doctrine declares that Allah is One in substance, which
he equates with dhdt, " being " or " essence, " Three in aqanim,
"subsistences" or " personalities, " which he equates with
sifdt, but, he says, these are really dhawdt, " essential beings,"
because they inhere in 'Isa, Jesus, and Maryam, Mary. He
adds, inhering in another at one time and separating at another
time is proof that they, although called sifdt, " attributes,"
are in reality essential beings, which, he concludes, is pure
misbelief.
It is of course quite to be expected that al-Razi, commenting
on the Qur'an and Muslim doctrine, would give the Quranic
rather than the Biblical view or the doctrine of God which
affirms that God is Spirit. He discusses the meaning of the
word ruh, " spirit." He says, spirit is that which is most
clean and pure. It is that which gives life. It is mercy.
It is breath. It is what angels are. Although he lived a
century after al-Ghazal he omits the teaching of that great

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 THE GRAMMAR OF SURATU 'L-IKHLAS 11

theologian that the term ruh includes the meaning of " imma-
terial, incorporeal substance " and does not follow the laws of
matter. Although discussion of the dhad, " essence " of Allah
is avoided by most Muslim theologians, there are others who
are prepared to deal with that subject, especially in connection
with the Oneness of God. Early commentators, such as
al-Tabari, like the Qur'an itself, use the word " one " in its
arithmetical or mathematical or numerical sense, as a single or
individual item, rather than two or more. It is this aspect of
the Oneness of Allah that al-Razi also discusses here as he had
done before in his comments on Sarah II, verse 163 and Sarah
XXI, verse 22 ,adding philosophical arguments to the authority
of the traditions and the Qur'an itself.
The next two words of Suratu 'l-Ikhlas are Alldht 'l-samad.
The official Egyptian edition of the Qur'an takes them together
as verse number two. Grammatically the two words form a
second predicate to the Allah in the first verse, so that the two
sentences read, " Allah is One, Allah al-$amad. " The word
"al-samad" is an adjectival noun that modifies, that is,
describes, Allah.
There is no objection in Arabic grammar to taking these
two words of the second verse together as a second predicate
of the subject of the preceding sentence. As mentioned
before, in Arabic a declarative nominal sentence may have a
definite subject precede a definite predicate when the predicate
expresses two ideas. It is valid logic and rhetoric to say,
"Allah is the Samad Allah" or "Allah who is al-Samad.
All Arabic grammarians agree on that point in the interpretation
of the verse. It is about the meaning of the word samad that
there is great disagreement and total uncertainty. The word
is hapax legomenon in the Qur'an and has not been found in
any satisfying sense in genuine pre-Islamic literature nor in
other languages. Lexicographers and commentators are usually
content to present five or more different interpretations of the
word. Translators content themselves by choosing one of the
five, or strengthen their interpretations by combining two of
the meanings. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, for instance,
renders the verse as, " Allah, the eternally Besought of all. "

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12 EDWIN E. CALVERLEY

As usual, al-Razi's list of the interpretations of al-samad is

both well arranged and extensive. He says, al-Samad is
I. the One Sought, and II. the Solid. He adds that the com-
mentators say, Allah is the One Sought because He is 1. Omnis-
cient; 2. Kind; 3. Lord; 4. the Creator; 5. Besought of all; 6. the
Irresistible Ruler; 7. the Great Ruler; 8. the Glorious One.
Other commentators say, He is Solid because He is 1. Indepen-
dent; 2. Unsurpassed; 3. the Provider; 4. Eternal in the Past
and the Future; 6. Deathless; 7. Sleepless; 8. Indescribable;
9. Faultless; 10. Without Defect; 11. Perfect; 12. Victor;
13. Without Need; 14. Inscrutable; 15. Unseen; 16. Unbegotten;
17. Great; 18. Unchangeable.
The lack of certainty which this variety of interpretations
reveals is an indication of the freedom of exposition that Muslim
scholars are accorded in their dealing with the meaning of the
Qur'an.
Verse Three of the Surah reads Lam yalid wa-lam yulad,
He did not beget and He was not begotten."
Lam is a particle used with an apocopated form of the present,
or aorist measure of the verb to express a negative and past
meaning. Lam yaf'al, " he did not act, " is strictly and pre-
cisely the negative of fa'ala, " he acted. " In al-Razi's exposi-
tion of the verse here, he answers an assumed question about
the use of lam instead of the particle lan, which would express
a strong and complete negation of future action. His answer
makes the verse to be a denial of beliefs already current in
Arabia. The pagan Arabs make, says the Qur'an, Allah to
have daughters (16: 57/59; 37: 149). The Qur'an also says,
" Christians said, The Messiah is the Son of Allah and the
Jews said, 'Uzayr (Ezra) is the Son of Allah (9: 30). " Thus,
says al-Razi, the past forms of the verbs in these verses require
the use of the past tense in the verse which replies to them.
The translation which best conforms to this common gramma-
tical and exegetical interpretation of the verse is therefore,
"He did not beget, and He was not begotten. "
It may be noted, however, that the mddi or past form of the
Arabic verbal system is also used legitimately for other than
actions in past time. It is used regularly in both parts of

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 THE GRAMMAR OF SURATU 'L-IKHLAS 13
conditional sentences when the protasis precedes the apodosis
and the latter is not introduced by the conjunction fa, in which
case the fa may be translated as " then. " The translation
into English of such Arabic past forms requires the use of the
present or future tenses. The Arabic past measure is also used
in gnomic sentences and likewise to express the past action
continuing into the present. The most usual example of this
last meaning cited by grammarians is ikhtalafu 'I-'ulamd or
ikhtalafati 'I-'ulamd, where the verbs are in the past form with
the meaning best expressed as " Scholars differ. "
Applying this grammatical usage to the Quranic verse under
examination, the Muslim commentators exercise their right to
differ from any who interpret the sentence as merely mddi
and give the verse a far more extensive significance. Trans-
lators, therefore, following the same grammatical freedom, may
quite properly render the verse as, " He does not beget and He
is not begotten. " It should, however, be noted that in this
case such interpretations separate the verse fromn specific
reference to the Quranic verses already quoted. It is these
and their parallel verses which undoubtedly determined and
express Islam's chief objections to paganism, Judaism and
Christianity. Certainly the statement, " He did not beget, "
with the implication " as pagans believe their gods beget," is a
strongly expressed objection to Arabian pre-Islamic belief that
Allah had daughters who received worship as goddesses.
Similarly, the declaration, " He did not beget, " addressed to
any Christians who accepted the Messiah as the Son of Allah
and thus implying that they believed 'Isa, Jesus, to be another,
a second, god, along with Maryam, Mary, as a mother goddess
for Allah, is a strong and indeed valid rebuke to any tri-theism
among Christians. Likewise, those same words with the
implied addition of 'Uzayr, Ezra, as the object of the verb,
would discourage any Jews who might be inclined to raise Ezra
to divine status. Outside of the Qur'an there is no evidence
that any did.
The Grammar of the Classical Arabic Language, by
M. S. Howell (Allahabad, 1880), is an invaluable compendium
of grammatical information. It presents the material in

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14 EDWIN E. CALVERLEY

Arabic-Arabic grammars as E. W. Lane's Arabic-English

Lexicon does from the Arabic-Arabic dictionaries. It is now
excessively rare and should be republished, preferably with
revision of its technical terminology. The uses of lam are
presented in Part II, pp. 533 ff. Lam is a negative particle,
making the action of the verb to be 1. discontinuous, which
means madd or past; 2. continuous, meaning present; and
3. perpetual. As examples of this usage, Surah CXII, verses 3
and 4 are cited. The translation of verse three would then be,
" He never did and never will beget and He never has been
and never will be begotten. " Theology has probably influenced
this interpretation. It is added here for completeness. It
illustrates the exegetical liberty that Muslim scholars may
exercise.
Verse Four of Saratu 'l-Ikhlas reads, wa lam yakun lahi
kufu'an ahadua, " and there was no one sufficient for Him. "
This verse clinches the Surah's denial of Allah's paternity and
sonship in any literal sense. Human terminology is applied
to Allah throughout the Qur'an, but all such anthropomorphisms
are never to be understood in any literal sense. Al-Baydawi's
Commentary says the verse means that Allah did not have a
sahibah, "companion," or "consort ", and this conclusion is
acceptable, doctrinally and grammatically, to all.

Edwin E. CALVERLEY
(Hartford, Conn.)

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