the transitive verbs a‘tā (“to give”) and kasā (“to clothe”). It is not valid to suppose that the verb was first transferred to ‘atū (“to take”) and then prefixed with the transitive-making hamza, for this would distort the meaning: the exclamation concerns his giving, not his ‘atw, meaning his taking. The hamza here indicates exclamation and comparison, while the hamza of the underlying verb has been omitted. It therefore cannot be said that its purpose is to make the verb transitive.

They said: As for your claim that it is made transitive by lām in expressions such as mā adrabahu li-Zayd (“How hard he strikes Zayd!”), and so forth, the lām is not introduced here because the verb is intransitive, as you maintain. Rather, it strengthens the verb, whose governing force has been weakened by its inability to undergo inflectional variation. Confined to a single form, it departs from the normal behaviour of verbs, weakening its ability to require and govern its complement. It is therefore strengthened by lām, just as a governing expression is strengthened by it when its complement precedes it or when its own status is derivative.

This is the stronger position, as you can see (1).

Let us now return to our subject. According to the first group, Ahmad means “the one who praises his Lord more than anyone else”; according to the latter group, it means “the one most deserving and worthy of praise.” Its meaning is thus similar to that of Muhammad. The distinction, however, is that Muhammad denotes someone possessing many qualities for which he is praised, whereas Ahmad denotes someone whose praise surpasses that accorded to others in excellence. Muhammad thus concerns abundance and quantity, while Ahmad concerns the nature and quality of praise. He therefore deserves more praise than anyone else, and praise of a higher order than anyone else deserves. He receives the most abundant and finest praise bestowed upon human beings. Both names thus refer to the recipient of praise, which praises him more emphatically and conveys a fuller meaning.