Among the statements handed down from the early scholars—statements that some people misjudge as disagreements—is that they would express one and the same meaning with closely related phrases rather than with perfectly synonymous ones. True synonymy in Arabic is scarce, and in the wording of the Qur’an it is either exceedingly rare or altogether absent. It is seldom possible to replace one word with another single word that captures all of its shades of meaning; at best, the substitute only approximates the original sense. This subtlety is one of the facets of the Qur’an’s inimitability.

Explanation

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—states that exact synonymy in Arabic is limited, for what is called synonymy is, in reality, a sort of lexical inflation. Concerning abstract meanings the author is correct, yet with respect to concrete entities, the language is rich in synonymous terms. How many names does the cat have? How many does the lion have? And so on. While it is true that strict synonymy in the realm of meanings is uncommon, it nonetheless exists and cannot be denied. For example, burr, qumḥ, ḥabb—and in our colloquial speech ʿaysh—all denote “wheat,” and that is genuine synonymy in abundance.

Regarding the Qur’an, the author argues that strict synonymy is rare, meaning that no single word in the scripture can be replaced by another that conveys exactly the same sense. Consider the word shakk (doubt) in His saying, “If you are in doubt concerning what We have revealed to you” (Yunus 94), and the word rayb (uncertainty) in “in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the God-fearing” (al-Baqarah 2). Some people assume that shakk and rayb carry identical meanings, but that is not the case, as the author will explain. Hence he concludes that perfect synonymy is either rare or nonexistent.

His statement, “and seldom is a single word rendered by another single word that conveys all of its meaning,”—his words