and the original language a connection that makes this usage figurative in relation to it. Thus, a Bedouin once heard some grammarians speaking in their technical terminology and said, “These people discuss our speech in language other than ours, to correct our speech by it.”

Likewise, the designation fāʿil (“verbal subject”) applies to the noun to which a preceding verb or its equivalent is attributed, as in qāma Zayd (“Zayd stood up”), aqāma Zayd (“Zayd stayed”), and similar expressions. Yet they do not call the explicitly stated noun in Zayd qāʾim (“Zayd is standing”) a verbal subject, but rather a nominal subject. It is well known that, in ordinary language, what the term fāʿil (“agent”) denotes is not a word; nor, when used to designate the noun naming the agent, is it restricted to an earlier or a later one. Rather, this is terminology they needed to explain the rules of Arabic grammar and morphology. It is among the most useful aids to understanding scriptural evidence and the Arabic language. Nevertheless, linguistic conventions must be understood so that each speaker’s words are interpreted according to his language and customary usage.

An example concerning the particles that grammarians call “containers” is that people say, “I saw so-and-so in his house”; they also say, “I saw so-and-so in the mirror,” or “in the water”; and they say, “I saw so-and-so in a dream.” The word “in,” which grammarians call a spatial container, occurs in all three expressions. Yet it is well known that neither the apparent meaning nor the literal sense of “in the house” is the same as that of “in the mirror”