The Words | 25. Word | 382
(375-476)

These conditions may be extended. That is, the form almsgiving should take, with what goods. It may be given as learning and knowledge. It may be given as words, or as acts, or as advice. The word what in out of what indicates these various sorts through its generality. Furthermore, it indicates this with the sentence itself, because it is absolute and expresses generality. Thus, with the five conditions in this short sentence describing almsgiving, it opens up a broad field before the mind, granting it to it through the sentence as a whole. Thus, in the sentence as a whole, the word-order has many aspects.

Similarly, the word-order between words encompasses a broad sphere and has many aspects. And between phrases. For example, Say: He is God, the One 8 contains six sentences. Three of them are positive and three negative. It proves six degrees of Divine unity and at the same time refutes six ways of associating partners with God. Each sentence is both the proof of the other sentences and the result. For each sentence has two meanings. Through one meaning it is the result, and through the other the proof. That is to say, within Sura al-Ikhlas are thirty suras composed of proofs that demonstrate each another to be as well-ordered as the Sura itself. For example:

Say, He is God, because He is One, because He is the Eternally Besought, because He begets not, because He is not begotten, because there is none that is equal to Him.

And:

And there is none that is equal to Him, because He is not begotten, because He begets not, because He is Eternally Besought, because He is One, because He is God.

And:

He is God, so He is One, so He is the Eternally Besought, so He begets not, so He is not begotten, so there is none that is equal to Him. You can continue in the same way.

A further example:

Alif. Lam. Mim. * This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those who fear God.9

Each of these four phrases has two meanings. With one meaning each is a proof of the other phrases, with the other, it is their result. From the sixteen threads of their relationships, a miraculous word-order embroidery is wrought. It is described thus in Isharat al-I'jaz. Also, as is explained in the Thirteenth Word, it is as though all the Qur'an's verses have eyes that see most of the other verses and faces that look to them, so that each extends to the others the immaterial threads of relationship; each weaves a miraculous embroidery. From beginning to end Isharat al-I'jaz expounds this beauty and eloquence of the word-order.

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The Words