“Allah the Exalted will say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘O Adam,’ and he will reply, ‘Here I am, O Allah, here I am.’” (1)

It also carries the sense of remaining, as in the expression, “He remained in a place.” Thus, it encompasses both response and continuance: responding to Allah and remaining steadfast in obedience to Him. For this reason, some explained it as meaning: “Here I am—that is, I answer Your call and remain steadfast in obedience to You.” This is a sound explanation.

If someone were to ask: Where is Allah’s call to which the pilgrim in ihram responds?

We say: It is His saying, Exalted is He:

“Proclaim to the people the pilgrimage: they will come to you on foot.” [al-Hajj: 27]

That is, inform the people about the pilgrimage, or call them to it: “They will come to you on foot”—meaning, walking on their feet, not as the opposite of females. The evidence that they come on foot is what follows:

“And on every lean camel, coming from every distant mountain pass.” [al-Hajj: 27]

This is a beneficial principle in Quranic exegesis: the meaning of a word may be known through what is set in contrast to it.

An example is His saying, Exalted is He—though this is less apparent than the verse before us:

“March forth in separate groups, or march forth all together.” [al-Nisa: 71]

Thus, “in separate groups” means dispersed, even though one would be very unlikely to understand the word in that sense on its own. Yet, since He follows it with, “or march forth all together,” it becomes known that what is meant by “separate groups” is those who are dispersed.

Does the dual form in the talbiyah literally indicate duality—that is, “I have answered You twice”—or does it denote abundance in a general sense?