Thus, none of these examples permits the implied wording they propose. And Allah knows best.

It has also been said that the mīm was added to express magnification and exaltation, just as it is added in zurqum, meaning intensely blue, and in ibnam, a form of ibn (“son”).

This view is correct, but requires further explanation. Its proponent perceived a sound meaning that must be clarified: the mīm denotes and entails collectivity, and its point of articulation likewise implies this.

This accords with the principle upheld by those who affirm a correspondence between wording and meaning, as do the great masters of Arabic. Abū al-Fath Ibn Jinnī devoted a chapter to it in al-Khasā’is, attributed this view to Sībawayh, and supported it with various examples of correspondence between wording and meaning.

He then said: “For a time, I would encounter a word whose established meaning I did not know, yet discern its meaning from the force of its sound and the correspondence between its letters and that meaning. I would then investigate it and find it to mean what I had understood, or something close to it.”

I related this statement of Ibn Jinnī to Shaykh al-Islām, who said: “That often happens to me as well.” He then gave me a highly beneficial explanation of the correspondence between wording and meaning, and of how vowels correspond to a word’s meaning. Generally, the Arabs assign the dammah (u), the strongest vowel, to the strongest meaning; the light fathah (a) to the lighter meaning; and the intermediate vowel to the intermediate meaning.

Thus, they say ‘azza–ya‘azzu, with a fathah on the ‘ayn, when something becomes hard; and ard ‘azāz means hard ground. They say ‘azza–ya‘izzu, with a kasrah (i), when something resists being overcome. Resistance is a degree above hardness: something may be hard yet offer no resistance to someone breaking it. Then they say ‘azzahu–ya‘uzzuhu when someone overcomes another. Allah Most High says in the account of David (peace be upon him):

38:23 “And he overpowered me in speech.”

Overcoming is stronger than resistance: something may itself resist attack and be fortified against its enemy without overcoming anything else. One who overcomes is therefore stronger than one who merely resists, so they assigned the strongest vowel—the dammah—to the former. Hardness is weaker than resistance, so they assigned it the weakest vowel—the fathah. To resistance, intermediate between these two degrees, they assigned the intermediate vowel.

A similar example is their use of dhibh—with a kasrah on its first letter—for the animal slaughtered, and dhabh—