in Sūrah al-Aḥzāb.

An instance of ambiguity that hinges on the meaning of a single particle is Allah’s words, “And spend of that which ….” The preposition min (“of”) here indicates “a portion of,” yet the precise portion the believers are commanded to give is left unspecified. The Qur’an itself resolves this in another passage: “They ask you what they should spend; say, ‘the surplus’” (2:219). The surplus is whatever exceeds one’s indispensable needs. A fuller discussion of this will appear at the beginning of Sūrah al-Baqarah, Allah willing.

Among the Qur’an’s modes of clarification is the removal of ambiguity that arises when the antecedent of a pronoun could be understood in more than one way. This occurs frequently. Take His statement in Sūrah al-ʿĀdiyāt: “Indeed, he is a witness to that” (100:7). The pronoun may refer either to the human being or to the Lord of that human, mentioned in the preceding verse: “Indeed, mankind is ungrateful to his Lord” (100:6). The noble sequence, however, shows that it returns to the human being—the antecedent mentioned first—because the verse that follows states, “And indeed he is, in his love of wealth, intense” (100:8), which indisputably describes the human being. Splitting the referents so that the first pronoun points to the Lord and the second to the human being does not befit the Qur’an’s exalted style.

A further method of clarification in this blessed Book is that something will be mentioned in one place, while the question about it and its answer are given elsewhere. For example, Allah says, “All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds” (1:2). What, precisely, are “the worlds”? The question and its answer appear in another passage: “Pharaoh said, ‘And what is the Lord of the worlds?’ Moses said, ‘The Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything between them’” (26:23-24). Although Pharaoh—may Allah curse him—was ostensibly inquiring about the Lord Himself, the reply he received simultaneously clarified what is meant by “the worlds.”