whom You own, together with everything he possesses.”
– labbayka: derived from the verb alabba, “to stay constantly in a place.” It functions here as an infinitive in the accusative, and because it appears in the dual form its verb is, by rule, elided; when the Arabs doubled it for emphasis, it was as if they had uttered it twice. The sense, therefore, is “a response to You after another response, and a constant abiding in Your obedience.” The doubling conveys reinforcement and abundance.
– innaʾl-ḥamda: The initial hamzah may be read with kasrah or fatḥah. Reading it with kasrah treats it as a clause of initiation; reading it with fatḥah makes it a subordinating particle. Thaʿlab preferred the kasrah, for it conveys that “praise and bounty belong to Allah in every circumstance.” The fatḥah, on the other hand, links the phrase to the meaning of labbayka, i.e., “I respond to You because praise is Yours.”
– al-niʿmah: with a kasrah on the nūn, meaning joy and a gracious bestowal. The most common parsing puts it in the accusative, conjoined to al-ḥamd as the noun of inna, with its predicate omitted; the prepositional phrase laka (“to You”) attaches to that omitted predicate. It may also be parsed in the nominative as an independent clause.
– al-rukn: the eastern corner of the honored Kaʿbah that contains the Black Stone, the corner from which the Stone is customarily touched.
– faramal: ramal is to walk briskly with a light trot and a shoulder-sway. It is done in the first three circuits of the arrival ṭawāf.
– maqām Ibrāhīm: the stone on which Abraham stood with Ishmael while building the House. It now stands at the edge of the circumambulation area, directly opposite the Kaʿbah’s door.
– raqā: Al-Miṣbāḥ summarizes: raqītu (“I climbed”) follows the pattern of taʿiba; raqītuʾl-jamal means “I mounted the camel.” By contrast, raqaytuhu (pattern ramā) means “I treated him with a ruqyah, seeking Allah’s protection.” The noun is ruqyā (pattern fuʿlā); the plural is ruqan.
– al-Ṣafā: with a final alif maqṣūrah; plural ṣafāt. It is a large, hard, smooth rock, and likewise