date; and if one cannot find even that, then with a kind word.”

When those occupied with grammar began to confine the term kalimah (word) to a single noun or verb—thereby shifting its original sense—they ended up thinking that this was how the Arabs themselves spoke. Later, when some of them came across authentic Arab usage in which kalimah referred to a complete sentence, they started to say, “and a kalimah by which an entire statement may sometimes be intended,” classifying that instance as merely occasional.

Others labelled such usage figurative, but the matter is not so. It is nothing more than the later grammarians’ own convention, for it is not known that the early Arabs employed the words kalimah or kalām (speech) for anything short of a full sentence—and that is exactly how the premier authorities of grammar, such as Sībawayh and others, reported it from them.

How, then, can one claim that this is the figurative usage, or that such-and-such is rare or common?

In the same way, the word qadīm in the Arabic language simply means “that which came before something else,” as when it is said