of those You have blessed, not of those who have incurred Your wrath.”

Were you to say, “Welcome to the delegation, other than the disgraced or the remorseful,” you would put ghayr in the genitive. This is the established usage in their speech.

Whether ghayr remains indefinite in a genitive construction, and whether it may properly function as a circumstantial qualifier in that case, is a discussion for another place.

As for the nominative reading, ghayr is an adjectival qualifier of “those who remain behind.” This is the correct view.

Abū Ishāq and others said that it is the predicate of an omitted subject, the implied wording being: “those who are other than those with disabilities.” What led him to this view was his assumption that ghayr cannot become definite through a genitive construction and therefore cannot serve as an adjective qualifying a definite noun. Those who make this claim have no reliable proof beyond the contention that ghayr is so thoroughly indeterminate that it cannot become definite through the noun to which it is annexed.

The answer is that when ghayr occurs between two opposites, it contains no ambiguity, since the noun to which it is annexed determines its meaning.

As for the genitive reading, there are likewise two interpretations.

The first—and the correct one—is that it is an adjectival qualifier of “the believers.”

The second, which is al-Mubarrad’s view, is that it stands in apposition to that noun, on the grounds that ghayr is indefinite and therefore cannot qualify a definite noun.

Under all these interpretations, it conveys the meaning of an exception: the denial of equality does not extend to the group designated by the genitive complement of ghayr.

His words,

“Allah has favoured those who strive with their wealth and their lives over those who remain behind by one rank,”

clarify what is meant by the denial of equality.

They said: The meaning is that Allah has favoured those who strive over those who remain behind because of disabilities by a single rank, since they are distinguished from them by striving with their lives and wealth. Then He, glorified be He, stated that