sway to and fro (al-Ṭūr 52:9), and then adds that mawr merely means “movement,” he is only approximating, for mawr is a swift, slight motion.

In the same vein, when someone says that waḥy is simply “communication,” or explains “We revealed to you” (al-Nisāʾ 4:163) as “We sent down to you,” or that “We decreed for the Children of Israel” (al-Isrāʾ 17:4) means “We informed them,” and the like, all of this is approximation rather than full precision. Waḥy is a rapid, hidden form of communication, while qaḍaynā ilāhum (“We decreed to them”) is more specific than mere informing, for it involves sending down to them as revelation.

The Arabs frequently load one verb with the meaning of another and then govern it with that other verb’s preposition. Those who imagine, therefore, that prepositions can simply replace one another are mistaken. Take the verse, “He has certainly wronged you by asking for your ewe ilā (in addition to) his own ewes” (Ṣād 38:24): some say ilā here means maʿa (“with”). Or the verse, “Who will be my helpers ilā Allah?” (al-Ṣaff 61:14), which they gloss as “with Allah,” and the like. The correct explanation, as the Basran grammarians stated, is taḍmīn—semantic loading. The request for the ewe implicitly includes the idea of gathering it and adding it to his ewes. Likewise, in “They almost lured you away from what We had revealed to you” (al-Isrāʾ 17:73), the verb carries the sense of “turning you aside and diverting you.” In “We helped him against the people who denied Our signs” (al-Anbiyāʾ 21:77) it contains the meaning of “We rescued and delivered him.” In “Allah’s servants will drink from it” (al-Insān 76:6) it carries the sense of “They will quench their thirst with it.” Many other examples could be cited.

Similarly, whoever says that lā rayba means “there is no doubt” is again only giving an approximation. Rayb involves agitation and disturbance, as in the saying, “Leave what causes you rayb for what does not,” and in the ḥadīth where the Prophet passed by a gazelle lying curled in sleep and said, “Let no one startle (yarībuhu) it.” Just as yaqīn (certainty) implicitly conveys stillness and tranquillity, its opposite, rayb, inherently conveys unrest and motion. Although the word shakk (doubt) may be said to entail this idea, its very form does not denote it.

Likewise, to say that “That Book” means “this Qur’an” is